Wednesday, 9 January 2013

Week 1



TWC was my first class of the semester on Monday, 7th January. It was a pretty good session, despite Prof forgetting to ask our row to introduce ourselves at first (a bit awkward, haha). After the first half of the class, we started discussions on 'Technology and the Rise of Civilizations', which reminded me a lot of my 7th and 8th grade History lessons about Ancient Civilizations, the Industrial Revolution, etc. We watched a couple of thought provoking videos, and checked out a pretty interesting timeline that went all the way back to the start of time.

One of the points that really caught my attention was the possibility that a certain number of years from now, computers could be much smarter than human beings. In certain ways, this is quite likely to happen, but I still feel that there are other aspects in which a computer cannot surpass the capabilities of humans. For example: making decisions requiring not only logic, but also the “understanding of emotions”.

Another point that Prof mentioned, that stood out to me was the importance of ‘Sustainable Development’. (Development which meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs) This would be an important concept to remember and make use of.

All in all, it was a good start to the semester, and I’d rate the session a 7 out of 10.

No comments:

Post a Comment