I found today’s tasks extremely interesting, particularly relating how tools have shaped us, and using that information to imagine how future tools may also shape future people. For example, writing systems through history have been designed not only by the writers but also by the tools they used, such as the Latin script we write in, which is made up of mostly straight lines, as it was carved initially into stone, while ancient Mesopotamian scripts, for example, are wedge shaped, as they were formed by pressing reeds into clay.

https://evolutionoftheprogress.com/evolution-of-ancient-writing-tools/

Examples of this very same effect are seen in our vast library of available fonts. Our tools, in the digital age, are not constrained by physical limitations, and due to this we have a vast range of possible fonts to choose from, but again, certain typefaces are more suited to reading on screen, so the tool shapes which are most commonly found in media.

I was interested this week in the example shown in the lecture of the Chinese social credit system, particularly how those who benefited from it were extremely positive about it, while to anyone else, it appears as a terrible infringement of human privacy. To me, this has implications for how AI may develop in the coming years, where the dangers it poses to privacy and potential crimes that may be committed may be overshadowed by its positive use cases, and those who benefit from it may ignore the threat.