1. Write on your own where/how you think AI is currently being used, or might be used in the near future in your field, whether academically while studying or in the workplace (1 point)

As of write now I think AI is used as an assistance tool to take care of simple tasks in order to save time and be efficient, of course it is also used for explaining certain concepts that are factual rather than opinion based to help promote learning without struggling to find a free open source education material just to never understand the concept in the end.

While the future remains unknown with some theorizing of computer science/engineering as non-existent I believe otherwise and computer students’ value will increase drastically due to increase in demand for AI management and machine learning as well as security protection from cyber attacks and much much more.

2.   Use one of the AI tools to see what it will suggest are ways AI will be used in your field.      Cite the AI with the link and your prompt (1 point)

Prompt: Use one of the AI tools to see what it will suggest are ways AI will be used in your field.      Cite the AI with the link and your prompt (1 point) I am in Computer Science.

Autonomous Coding and “Agentic” Workflows We are moving beyond simple code completion. AI is evolving into Autonomous Agents that can navigate entire repositories, understand architectural context, and perform complex refactoring or bug fixing without line-by-line human supervision. Impact: The role of a “coder” is shifting toward that of a System Architect. You’ll spend more time defining the intent and constraints of a system while AI handles the syntax and boilerplate.

Shift Toward Natural Language Programming The “abstraction layer” of programming is rising again. Just as we moved from Assembly to C, and C to Python, we are now moving toward Natural Language. Impact: Formal languages (Java, C++, etc.) won’t disappear, but they will become the “under-the-hood” mechanics. Developers will use human language to describe logic, which the AI then compiles into optimized, machine-executable code.

Real-time Security and Self-Healing Systems AI is being integrated directly into the DevOps pipeline to create Self-Healing Infrastructure. Impact: Systems can now detect a zero-day vulnerability or a memory leak in real-time and autonomously deploy a patch or scale resources to mitigate the threat before a human engineer even gets the alert.

Synthetic Data Generation for Research In fields like Data Science and Machine Learning, AI is used to create Synthetic Datasets. Impact: This solves the “cold start” problem for training new models where real-world data is scarce, biased, or restricted by privacy laws (like healthcare or cybersecurity). Source: Gemini (gemini.google.com) 

3.     Interview a professor at AUC about this – you can ask them about both academic and professional uses. You can take permission to record the interview in audio and put the recording on your blog, with a summary of your key findings. Or you can take notes. Maybe take a photo with the professor as well 🙂  (2 points)

Academic:

Use: Dr. El-Batt notes that AI is an “already around us” fact. It helps students become more efficient by handling complicated or repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus more on the creative and critical thinking aspects of their projects. 

Harm: He warns that for certain foundational exercises, AI can be harmful. If the tool eliminates the student’s own line of thinking, it negates the entire purpose of the learning exercise.

Professional:

Dr. El-Batt sees AI as a powerful ally for solving systematic problems and implementing well-known algorithms quickly. This frees up engineers to focus on fine-tuning and advanced tailoring for specific, complex cases. And he explicitly disagrees with idea that AI will replace engineers, arguing that it needs humans for high-level logic which AI cannot replicate;

Quote of the day 🙂 —– Using AI for these types of [foundational] problems would be somewhat harmful because it’s going to sort of negate the student’s thinking… which defeats the purpose of learning.” — Dr. Tamer El-Batt 

4.     Interview a person in the profession that you know – an older sibling, family friend, etc. If you cannot think of someone you know, you could interview an additional professor who works a lot in the field (some part-time professors are like that) or interview someone from the career center. Again, you can audio-record or take notes, and provide a summary. (2 points)

Omar Mohammad an online freelancer in the field for 3 years he is the son of my mom’s friend

Omar emphasized that while his degree provided the logic and “how to learn,” the freelance market moves much faster than any university curriculum. He noted that in freelancing, you are your own “Research & Development” department. If a client asks for a feature using a brand-new AI library, you have to master it over the weekend or lose the contract. 

Pros: using AI has helped him speed up his project completion making him take more commissions than he usually can

Cons: he admitted that entry-level commissions are disappearing off the market because AI can easily handle them forcing the only available requests as ones that require high logic and human management and these are the only available means to survive in this fast growing industry.

No AI usage btw 🙂 

5.   Provide your reflection: were you surprised? What about your findings excite or scare you? Are you feeling anything else? What do you think you need to be doing right now about what you’ve just learned? (4 points). There are  2 points on how critical your interview questions and reflection are. In order to question any hype or exaggeration or unsubstantiated claims in your interview, see the tips below on how to be critical. (2 points)

Honestly, I was not surprised at all the major I have chosen is a difficult and fast growing one and I walked in with lowered expectations ,but with high passion and in order to survive in this field a person will have to specialize themselves in specific parts of this industry.

My findings actually both excite me and scare me pushing towards me certain doubts like “will I be able to handle all this” but at the same time no risk no fun really if risk is not taken I should not expect myself to make it that far else I would have chosen an easier field but with an average future. I still think I am right on the money.

I think I really need to pick up my pace and start learning more aspects of my field in order to catch up with the job market but a job isn’t really my goal but still meeting those requirements still mean something.