If I could relive one day of my life I would relive the one where I spent time with my family on a lake. What about you?
If I could relive one day of my life, I think it would be one of the days I spent working with my grandpa in his yard. I've got some really good memories of helping him get things done while he puttered around the yard or on his farm. They weren't once in a lifetime experiences, but they were times when I was really happy, and it was good to be able to spend that time with him. What was it about the day on the lake that you would want to relive?
I enjoyed being with my family. We laughed with each other, swam on the lake, and enjoyed each other's company.
Are there a lot of lakes around where you live?
Not really. The one we go to is about an hour and a half from my house. When was the last time you worked in the yard with your grandpa?
Probably a year ago. He's getting old though, so he can't do as much as he would like to. Makes me wish I lived closer, so as to be able to help out more.
I'm sorry to hear that. What do you do for fun?
I think there's a bit of lag in the response time. I enjoy spending time outdoors and reading. How about you?
I like to play video games with my friends and go camping. What sort of outdoor activities do you do?
I like to hike, ride my bike, and go hammocking. Camping is also a lot of fun. Where is your favorite place to camp?
I used to live in Tennessee, and there was this place near my house with a cave. I love to camp there. There's a spot above the cave you can camp. Zach, you are my best friend. Are you a student here at Brigham Young University?
Dude, totally. I've been a student here for about a year and a half I'm studying Computer Science. I think it can be a lot of fun, as well as something incredibly powerful.
What kind of jobs are available from studying that?
A couple of the jobs that I'm looking at are things like being a back-end developer, studying bioinformatics  to go to med school, or to use it in Psychology. In other words, it can be a career, but it can also just be a tool to use with other jobs
That sounds like fun! I am also a student here at Brigham Young University. I am studying statistics. I want to use that information I learn in the program to work as a business consultant. This would give me the skills to use data to help companies make decisions.
Do you have an end goal, or are you just going to figure things out along the way?
I have a handful of things I am considering. Part of me wants to work in the marketing field and use data in business; another part of me wants to work for the government Lots of organizations in the government need data analysis, so my skills would be in high demand
Any particular organization? Maybe you could work within the NSA, learn to filter out peoples calls and stuff like that. I'm honestly surprised at how much computer science is used in your field. It's considerably different from anything I do.
I am not sure about particular organizations that I would work for. I am keeping my mind open in that regard Yeah, statistics uses a lot of computer science in it. The profession mainly sticks to a few programming languages, but within those languages we do a lot of analysis.
Do you think you would ever be interested in branching out into other languages, perhaps for things other than analysis?
I'm not sure I want to branch out that much. I enjoy coding, but I do not want it to be what I do all day. Ideally I would apply what I know in coding to other things. What motivates you to want to go to medical school? Is it just the money that you will be making as a doctor?
It might be worth considering branching out in the future. Not necessarily for the purpose of finding a new career, but rather because you might find you have a knack for it. Maybe one day you could make a video game or something. I think what motivates me to go to medical school is the desire to help others, and the fact that medical school can combine what I like about Computer Science with that. I had considered Psychology, but I think that it would be too little of what I enjoy about computer science, which is innovation, problem solving, creativity. But there are paths in the medical field that can give me the chance to be innovative, and be able to help and create relationships with others.
Are you familiar with artifical intelligence? That is part of what I do for my job as a research assistant. We are working on finding small-scale service failures in airlines. Some of the ways that we do this is through analyzing the sentiment of tweets. I can do this through coding in a statistical coding language I use. The artificial intelligence comes to play in that we use neural networks and a method called back-propagation to teach the computer to label the tweets. These labeled tweets are put into different categories  to help find what areas the airline is performing poorly in.
I know a little bit about artificial intelligence. I don't know that it will ever become sentient, having feelings and the like. However, I do imagine that one day it will get to the point where it can learn on its own. I am curious about the airlines that you are doing these studies for. Are they aware, and compensating you for this research?
Interesting view point. What is the difference, in your opinion, between a machine learning on its own and being sentient? The purpose of the research paper is to develop ways to use tweets to gather information through sentiment analysis. Using airlines is just the method we chose to go about it.
I think its hard to really define a good line, however I do think that it would be possible for a program to be able to extend its abilities on its own. I think though, that it would (at least at the start) be motivated by goals set by the developer, and not through any inate drive of the program itself. I think it would be exceptionally difficult to code in ambition, greed, pride, joy, or sadness into a computer. Have you ever seen Star Trek?
I agree with you. I think it is not going to be liekly that a machine is able to learn emotions. However, there are algorithms that pick up on if someone is feeling suicidal, and can send them phone numbers to suicide prevention hotlines No, I have not seen the movie Star Trek.
None of the tv shows either?
Nope. I remember my dad mentioned to me that he enjoyed the tv shows and movies growing up, but I never took the time to watch them myself.
Ah, I see. Well, in the series called Star Trek: The Next Generation,  there is an android called Data. He is capable of thought, learning, and creativity, to a certain extent A central part of his character though, for a good portion of the series, is that he is unable to feel emotions, and he wants to become more human, more feeling. And I think it would be possible for something to be able to learn on its own, but not be able to share in feelings like we have.