Reading Log 5

Title: AI Learns Gender and Racial Biases From Language

Author: Jeremy Hsu
Text Type: Article

In this article Jeremy Hsu speaks about how AI is learning about gender and racial biases from existing English texts and how these AI could possibly exhibit these biases found in the texts.

Part of the text says that the AI are more likely to associate words such as flower and music with being pleasant and words such as insects and weapons with being unpleasant. But the AI was also more likely to associate European American names rather than African American names with being pleasant. It would also associate women with jobs in the arts rather than with mathematics. I think this is a problem because when we eventually introduce these AI robots into our world they will already hold preconceived prejudices. This will lead to even more gender and racial problems that future generations will have to endeavour. If these AI's can pick up different prejudices that the human race holds against each other then it is possible that the racial and gender problems we have right now will only worsen. Since these AI's effectively think for themselves, these preconceived ideas that they've gained by analysing us as a race and our language, may actually become the ideas that they will follow and try to implement. If the AI's become a race of their own then they could also feed off each other's information like we do. If they did this then they would begin to form their own prejudices amongst their race against our race.

Another part of the text I found interesting was this quote “The worry is that if machine learning is replicating human biases, it's also reflecting that back at us. Perhaps it would further create a feedback loop in perpetuating those biases." I found this to be a extremely true statement. I made a similar point on my first paragraph, if these AI's are recreating these biases then they will feed off each other's information just like we do. This world is run by opinions and power, if a leader thinks something needs changing, that is their opinion and they have the power to implement that change. Prejudices are built upon opinions of other people because of their religion, cultural background, gender etc. Over the years these opinions have become preconceived thoughts that people now already know and already think are normal, because they are so common. Now since AI are picking up on all of our prejudices that we hold against each other, these prejudices will become even more common and out of control, because not only are we reinforcing them, but the AI are picking up our ideas and making them their own. Reinforcing these prejudices and only making them worse.

Link for Article
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/robotics/artificial-intelligence/ai-learns-gender-and-racial-biases-from-language

Composition 2

Composition Ideas
Me, Cody, Cameron
Guitar and Drums Instrumental

I was sick for a week, but the boys had a intro sorted out, so once I had learnt that and gotten the vibe of the song the next day me and Cody sat down, and we exchanged riff ideas for the rest of the song and we ended up finishing the guitars apart from a solo.

We need to spend more time working on drum beats to accompany the guitars, but what Cameron has come up with so far has been awesome. We may include some sort of guitar harmony outro, and maybe a drum intro.

This song has a very upbeat feel and is extremely groove based and melodic, some vocals would go great over it but unfortunately we do not have a singer. All we need to do now is write some solo sections, write the rest of the drums and tweak the song so it is perfect to our ears.

This will be me and Cody's 5th composition but only our second with Cameron on Drums, so hopefully by the end of this year we will have all of our songs with guitars and drums, so we can eventually gain a bass player and a singer then record it all for our first E.P.

Artist Model: Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall was born 6th of July 1887 in Liozna, Russian Empire and died on the 18th of March 1985.
March Chagall was an early modernist. He used many different artistic styles and worked in almost every artistic format including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. My favourite part about Marc Chagall's paintings in particular are his backgrounds. Such as in these paintings.










For my first board I focused on Rene Magritte's idea of surrealism, simplicity and morphing objects together, so for my second board I am going to focus on Marc Chagall and using his ideas of using backgrounds that a very eclectic have a lot of texture and are often very disorientating.

Second Board

For my second board, I am going to focus on using naturally occurring objects such as birds plants etc as metaphors. For the top of my board I am going to do a progression of roses form dead to live to wrapped around someones hands. I will use the vines of the rose as a reoccurring theme for my second board which will link to the first board as it is similar to the chains. I will also do a raven flying away from another with some vine wrapped around it's leg and the other raven possibly wrapped up in it. These two birds are a continuation of the "two people" in my first board and one will have a key in it's mouth and I might use the prison bars through the middle of the piece with the two ravens and possibly have the raven flying away casting a shadow. and the roses are representations of the at this stage I am still thinking about the rest of my board. Here are some sketches and notes on these ideas.

Start of my Artwork with two ravens, debating on keeping it drawn, painting it or using mixed media.

First Page of ideas for second board.

Second Page of Second Board Ideas.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Reading Log 4

Title: Why My Guitar Gently Weeps: the slow, secret death of the six string electric
Author: Geoff Edgers
Text Type: Article

In this article Geoff Edgers speaks about the slow decline of the popularity of guitar, playing guitar, and guitar sales. He also speaks about how the world now needs more guitar heroes to start a new generation of players. He also claims that the guitar market is not growing and that guitar is slowly declining in popularity.

"What we need is guitar heroes" This is a quote from the article. I don't think the world needs guitar heroes because in my opinion there are already so many new guitar heroes out there and all of the old ones from the old school bands such as Led Zeppelin, AC-DC, Van Halen etc. are still inspiring the new waves of players. Also I think that everyone has someone that they look up to, who inspires them. So whether or not there are internationally recognised guitar heroes I think is irrelevant because there is always going to be people learning to play guitar or any instrument for that matter who are inspired by their favourite players, their music teachers, and even friends and family who play their chosen. For me when I hear an awesome piece of music, I am instantly inspired to grab my guitar and start playing and if I find a new artist I constantly play their songs and it influences my playing style. I think people are always going to have personal guitar heroes, people that they aspire to be like and people they look up to regardless of whether or not the musical community considers them a "Guitar Hero."

I think this article also relates to the social media world everyone is caught up in now and how there are so many new trends that just come and go. This is because in the early 2000s when the video game guitar hero came out, music that had guitar in it became so much more commercially accepted, because there was easier access to it, it was trending. During this time guitar sales were at an all time high and the guitar industry was booming. But all trends die off eventually so as time passed, over the last ten years guitar has gotten a lot less popular according to sales of officially licensed guitar stores. These sale statistics don't from online retailers such as amazon and Ebay, so maybe the trend of playing guitar hasn't died. I think this because there are so many ways to get a guitar now, second hand shops online and even from friends and family. So even though trends die there is always someone keeping them alive, there is always someone who absolutely loves whatever is trending and can't get enough of it. It's like when a song get into the top 40 charts. A lot of the time it will stay there for a few weeks then slowly drop off, and this cycle repeats, constantly circling songs through the top spots on the charts. But this doesn't mean everyone stops listening to them. Someone who really enjoys this song may look at the rest of the artists back catalogue listening to all of their songs, and then that artist becoming a long standing listen for that person. So even if guitar is slowly dying, it will never be non existent and there will be times when the popularity spikes, from my point of view in my chosen genres to listen to, guitar is a long way from dying, it just needs to be used in new, interesting ways to attract more listeners and grow the popularity of the band/genre for more people to listen to and see what they are doing with their guitars and other instruments that makes it so appealing.

I think this article has a lot of good points but doesn't properly address the issues faced by the guitar world today. We don't need guitar heroes, we just need to be able to view the music we like from a different perspective and really appreciate what people are doing with the instrument. Also there are so many similar bands out there but there are also so many bands that experiment with their instrument, exploring new ways to play and perform. I think that the world of guitar may not may be booming like it did in the pre naughties but it is definitely not dying, people just need to realise that there is so much out there to be inspired by and so many great people doing great things, you just got to look at it as a whole rather than just a few facts here and there to really get the full view of what's going on.

Reading Log 3

Title: Kalik
Author: Jack Lasenby
Text Type: Novel

Kalik is a story of Ish who is introduced to a society driven by cruelty lead by Kalik and Lutha. The Shaman, Lutha's father has recently passed leaving Ish with all his knowledge. Ish soon finds himself taking care of the salt children and realising it is not a safe place for any of them. Ish needs to get out but cannot leave the children alone in the presence of Kalik as they would surely be turned into slaves or even worse left without the proper care and food and left to die. So he helps them escape.

I think this book is showing how some people feel unsure and worried about the leaders in which they have to trust. Ish is not sure about Kalik. Ish knows that Kalik is a great leader, but he is also a cruel one who will let nothing stand in his way of power. Ish is ashamed of how Kalik treats the salt people (who are enemies that are captured and turned into slaves). Kalik has an island in which he sends Salt people to cut down trees and do other hard labour. If they do something not up to Kaliks standards he would punish them. He worked the slaves for very long hours and worked them extremely hard with little rest. showing how cruel he is to people because of his preconceptions of the salt people. Ish has seen the fear that Kalik instills in the salt people and feels as though he is too harsh on them and Ish begins to worry what Kalik would to to him if his drive for power becomes stronger. Ish cares for some of the Salt children and he tells a story of a donkey who is treated cruelly so he escapes and makes some friends along the way to help him on his journey. This story shows us that Ish and the children are wanting to escape the cruelty of Kalik and will do so one day. I think this relates to the current President of the United States of America. Donald Trump is a Leader who does not like it when things don't go his way and he doesn't like anything to stand in his way. He does not like immigrants coming in to his country because of the preconception of what their religion or race is linked to. Just like Kalik he does not give them a chance to prove themselves instead just casts them out and treats them like abominations who deserve nothing. Just like Ish did in the book, people revolted against this and tried to get justice for everyone that Donald trumps drive for power and preconceptions of these people has affected.

Another message in this book I think is the power of knowledge and how some people are afraid to use it and some people are afraid of the other knowledge people hold. Ish has been taught everything he knows by the great Shaman, he has learnt of the power of healing and the knowledge of how to read his thoughts also how to read and write and how to teach these skills that are so rarely found within the world he found himself in. In the book there is a battle in which many soldiers come back wounded meaning they are open to infection. Ish is knowledgeable with medicine and healing but when he tries to help the people tending to the wounded they do not listen. Also when Ish is around Kalik, He believes Kalik can read his mind so he thinks of things other than all of the knowledge that he gained from the Shaman. The Shaman once told Ish "Don't dismiss all dreams the art is in learning which one is telling you something. Offering an answer to a problem. Learn to recognise the true dream." This reinforces the idea that knowledge is a very powerful asset and you must use it wisely to make sure that you are solving a problem rather than creating one. I think this can closely relate to all of the innovative scientists such as Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Nikola Tesla etc. These were scientists that had absolutely brilliant ideas and used there knowledge to create theories and inventions that were highly innovative and at times insanely difficult for the ordinary mind to comprehend. A lot of people thought these great minds were insane, because they viewed things differently. People were afraid of what could possibly a brilliant leap in science and human evolution so people began to dismiss these inventors knowledge.

1st Board Artworks

I finished three artworks for my board, I used sketching for the broken chain and lighter and chalk drawing for the prison bars in chains, the chain represents broken trust, the prison bars with the key, is an innocent person in jail and the key  is a motif that will connect with a burning book which I've started painting which will go on the board after the lighter which is the lighter used to burn the book. The book is combined with a silhouette figure, I got this idea from my artist model Rene Magritte who combines objects together to make them appear less natural. I will paint in the next artwork of a person standing under a light with their shadow reading guilty to contrast with the innocent person in jail and within that shadow there will be a key on a chain and a lighter to link with the rest of my artworks. The chain bars and the shadow, silhouette are all reoccurring ideas in my first board to create a story and there is similar elements in each of the groups of artworks to link them together. I need to add some more shading and texture to the pieces that are drawn and I need to add some extra interesting stuff onto the chalk drawing with the key and prison bars. I will add some writing onto one of the bars and it will read innocent which will then link it to the other pieces on my board