Paper # 3: Analysis with multiple sources: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Paper # 3: Analysis with multiple sources: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Due Date: Thursday, July 23, 2020 (11:59 pm)

(Length: 850-1150 words + Works Cited

Citation requirement:

Minimum of 4 in-text citations,
Minimum of a 4-item Works Cited page,
Modern Language Association style (MLA).
Tutoring Requirement: Send your paper to “smart thinking” by July 22. Incorporate suggestions in the final draft.

Task: Write an analysis of the two major perspectives towards AI in the general media and in the articles contained in the academic database at De Anza library I have provided you with four articles; you need to select two more from the library database, one of which you will incorporate in your paper. The two perspectives are generally understood to be the following :

fear of the changes in the workplace, our relationships with one another, and our civic lives due to AI and
enthusiasm for AI for its role in bringing about positive changes that will improve people’s lives, save money, and do tasks more efficiently.
You may want to analyze the strengths of each position in your first two body paragraphs and discuss the weaknesses of both positions (in your third body paragraph), or your conclusion. Or you may want a different organizational structure–such as largely addressing fears (and thus subdividing those fears into categories), or largely addressing the promise of AI (and thus subdividing the paper into realms in which AI will likely be most useful and least threatening). There is some latitude in how you organize the material, depending on your strongest interests and knowledge base.

INTRODUCTION: (150-300 words) provides broad context. For instance, you could do some meta-analysis of trends in media coverage by looking at

the number of articles about AI over time–when did it peak? and
by a quick look at headlines to gauge overall attitudes.
See if you can tell if the high unemployment years (1982-1983 had a very high rate of unemployment, for instance) coincided or matched periods of media coverage that generally spoke of the dangers of AI. See if your analysis of articles in general (just read abstracts and/or titles of course ) coincides with any other social, political or economic trends.
You may include statistics, or a dramatic quotation, in your introduction as well.
You should indicate the historical period you are covering in your paper (recent, ie last few years, the last decade, the twenty-first century, the late twentieth century–or whatever period you examined for meta analytical trends in the library database.
Comparisons with fears of industrialization and promises of industrialization during the industrial revolution (Links to an external site.) and/or the US (Links to an external site.)great depression (Links to an external site.) maybe good for your introduction, too–but probably only if you already know something about them!

Evidence / Citation: Since this is a paper that will demonstrate your ability to guide your reader through possibly conflicting opinions by specialists or journalists about the promises (and threats) of AI, you will need to show that you can synthesize (combine and analyze comparatively) multiple sources in order to convey the range of opinions and the basis for those opinions about machine learning and AI to your reader. Your claim, in your thesis, will be to advance a position on why opinions vary so much amongst the general population, scientists, ethicists, journalists and computer scientists on the subject. Initially (first two body paragraphs) you are not agreeing or disagreeing with any of them, but rather trying to understand the range of opinions people hold and “why” people (do journalists write more enthusiastically than scientists hold the views they do.? If you have the time and interest, you might look up the authors of the papers you read to find out their background and perspective).

Because you will be citing from more than 1 or 2 articles (4 -5 typically), synthesizing opinions from various eras, geographic areas, and disciplines, you do not need to introduce any article in first paragraph (unless you depend quite a lot on that one article). Do not refer to the articles by their titles, only their author’s full name at first mention and last name only thereafter.

Thesis: Your thesis statement (the claim or set of claims you will be making in your paper) should be at the END of your introductory paragraph. If appropriate to your point or points, you could concede some point in your thesis by using an “Although” clause:

Sample Thesis which concedes a point: Although many people do not like Canadian Geese around the park because of the bird poop all over the sidewalks, school children love to see them arrive every winter because they like to chase the birds.

BODY PARAGRAPHS (2-4) Each body paragraph should cite (or paraphrases) one-three bits of supporting evidence.

Be sure you have limited each of your paragraphs to only one point, and unified all of the sentences in the paragraph to that one point. Usually, the topic sentence is the first paragraph.

How to use quoted evidence effectively: TRIM your quote, if you are direct quoting to just the relevant part, and summarizing or interpreting as the rest of the sentence:

Example of trimmed quote: Deisner uses cartoon images to convey AI as an army of “hulking masters waiting to rule” (45).

You may feel more comfortable using the PIE model:

Arguable Point (an opinion)

Information (facts)

Explanation (you tie “Info” part of your para.to the “Point” made in your topic sentence).

Here is a sample body paragraph (for a related but quite different sort of paper)

The industrial revolution actually made people work harder, but it did expand the products that were made. (Arguable Point) Information/ Fact 1: Robert Bly refers to one surprising fact related to the demands of industrialization, saying that “weavers used to work about 6 hours a day, but when textile manufacturing went into factories, the factory workers worked 14 hours a day.” Information / Fact 2 However, there was an upside: factories helped produce more consumer goods–so the availability of these good was improved by factories and the prices generally became much lower very quickly with the increased supply (Blume 320). Fact 3: Simon Li has studied tax revenues through the ages. He pointed out that when the industrial revolution caused an explosion of production, it also fed the government coffers by the next century: doubling or tripling the revenues that many governments received from taxes on sale of goods and services (43). [Explanation]: While we may well be impressed with the great availability of mass produced goods to the general population, the labor-saving promises of the industrial revolution did not filter down to the worker. Instead this era created huge profits by the owners of the factories and greatly increased tax revenue for governments. The worker was largely a “victim” of the industrial revolution, able to afford to buy more goods but too exhausted to enjoy them.

CONCLUSION (150 – 300 words) – relate the information in your paper to your own situation. Are you prepared to change your career direction based on a consideration of how AI may replace jobs? How will you plan your future in the face of the likely changes in the job market and the workplace? What about AI’s influence on social relations? Medicine? Biological processes? Be specific about the types of things you would like to do for work, and speculate on how these will or will not be influenced by developments in AI.

Remedies and controls: f you believe that there should be a regulatory framework that precedes or attempts to control AI development, how would that be internationalized, for instance? What other protections might offset some of the dangers, if the articles you have read persuade you there are dangers?