1. I found it interesting how the team curate’s history media from VHS tapes to cosets to film, along with genealogy programs to allow people to learn more about their own family history’s
2. How does this set apart from any other website or app for people to preserve memories
3. There are many cities with rich history, will this idea be spread throughout the country?
4. I think this would be a great way to keep history alive as time goes on so people do not forget.
5. Trying to engage students in the project is a good way to educate the new generation of the past history

In Jorge Luis Borges The Library of Babel and E. Lily Yu’s In the Forests of Memory, AI is not portrayed as a typical robot or villainous machine. Instead, both works focus on information, memory, and the way technology reshapes how humans understand themselves. When read together, they suggest that AI is less about machines taking over and more about how humans deal with overwhelming amounts of data and emotional attachment.

In The Library of Babel, Borges imagines an infinite library that contains every possible combination of letters. This means it includes all true knowledge, all false knowledge, and everything in between. The people living in the library spend their lives searching for meaning, often becoming obsessed or hopeless. Borges seems to assume that simply having access to all information does not guarantee wisdom. In fact, too much information can create confusion and despair. When I read this story, I couldn’t help but think about the internet and modern AI systems. Today, we have access to more information than ever, but it is still difficult to find truth among misinformation. Borges’ vision feels like a warning about what happens when knowledge becomes endless but not necessarily understandable. On the other hand, Yu’s In the Forests of Memory presents a more emotional perspective. In the story, a grieving mother uses technology to reconstruct her deceased daughter from digital data. The AI version of the daughter can speak and respond, but it is ultimately a simulation built from past messages and online traces. Yu assumes that identity might be reducible to data, but she also questions whether that is enough to truly recreate a person. The story suggests that AI can imitate personality, but imitation is not the same as consciousness. This raises ethical questions about grief, memory, and whether technology should be used to preserve people after death.

Both works argue that AI reflects humanity rather than replacing it. Borges shows how humans project faith and desperation onto systems of information. Yu shows how humans project love and longing onto digital recreations. In both cases, the AI or system does not have its own desires; instead, it amplifies human emotions and beliefs.

From my perspective as a computer science student, these stories connect strongly to modern AI tools. Today’s AI models do not truly understand the world, they analyze patterns in large datasets and generate responses. This is like Borges’ idea of recombining letters endlessly. At the same time, people are already experimenting with AI chatbots that simulate deceased loved ones, which makes Yu’s story feel very realistic. Together, these works suggest that the real question is not whether AI can think like humans, but whether humans are ready for technology that mirrors them so closely.

For AI fiction, I read The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury. I really enjoyed this very short story about a sad and seemingly lonely world where everyone is shut away in their homes. I would start this review off by saying the creator of this story assumes that as we progress in our technology, humans will become less social and dependent on one another and instead become more infatuated with their televisions and technology in general. I also think he assumes that most humans will be okay with this future, as in the story only one person is seen stepping away from this technology for a normal walk outside. I think it’s also safe to say the creator of this story believes that technology will advance to a point where it takes over complete jobs such as police officers, and that crime will be able to be controlled by just one AI car. I think the creator is making an argument that people and technology have a toxic relationship that might make things easier, but not necessarily better.  

The AI in this story is a vision of AI that is cold and calculating, while also being too robot to think rationally and human like. It shows AI as a machine that does not quite understand everything and instead makes generalized assumptions. The fictional AI in this story relates to my experience of AI as I can see that same type of assumptive nature in my own usage of online AI chatbots. Ai is clearly able to make some correct choices, but it seems to still need some supervision or an operator so that it can have a human perspective. I feel like the author is trying to show that we cannot let technology and AI dictate human life, and that seems to be where we are going.  

The reading for Feb. 18th is an academic article, and it’s a little more dense and jargony than usual. You don’t need to understand every detail! Come prepared with questions, areas that were confusing or difficult, and anything else you’d like to talk through.

To prepare for discussion, compile a Top 5. This should be a bulleted list of the top five ideas, topics, questions, or quotations you would like to discuss in class. Your list should demonstrate your engagement with the reading. The Top 5 assignment should help you engage with the reading and come to class prepared to share your ideas. A quality Top 5 will do more than summarize the text. It will provide you with a set of topics, questions, and quotations to discuss in class.

The first story I read was “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury. Overall, this was a very interesting read about how normal human behavior could be different in the future. The main protagonist goes about his daily routine. Later that night, he decides to go on one of his nightly walks out in the street. Not long after, he is strolling down the street when he is stopped by high beams and the sound of a megaphone questioning everything about him. His name, his occupation, and even why he is walking in the first place. He is then asked to get into the police vehicl which has no one in it. It is implied that he was then taken to a psychiatric institution of some kind for treatment. It is rather interesting how the timeline creates this sense of futuristic technology, but also this sense of apocalyptic dread. Like, why are other people not out in the street? Why does the self-driving police car think there is something wrong with a man who wants to go for a walk? Overall, a story I would have liked to have seen carried further. I see this relating to the use of AI in today’s society. Just as the main character of this story is nervous about the driverless cop, people are nervous about the control that AI could and will have on today’s world.

The second story I read was “When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis” by Annalee Newitz. This is a story about a robot that was created by the CDC, but unfortunately has been abandoned. The robot no longer gets any orders for updates from the CDC, so it does everything it can to help get samples of people who are potentially ill. The robot goes from door to door to see several people. Some dismiss the machine almost instantly, and others ask questions or follow the program that this robot requests. I think this goes to show how the rise and fall of new or old technology can majorly affect people’s trust in it. Not everyone is as open to new things as others. People need time to accept change and adapt to how technology plays a role in the world we know today.