New-ish East Kowloon Waterfront

The development of the old KaiTak Runway is finally coming into shape.  The old airport and runway was for decades mostly a wasteland.  I have sneaked in occasionally, and found kids playing cricket, flying kites, etc.  Even people stealing storm drain covers.  My main interest was the markings where the planes should park themselves.  

Now there is a cruise terminal, which remains deserted except for the infrequent visit of an actual cruise boat. 

But the old runway is much more accessible these days, and getting more and more so.  Now one can run partly down one side and then back up the other.  I long for the day when I can run all the way down one side and up the other.  

There is also the option of running along the elevated garden in the middle of the runway, surrounded on both sides by luxury high-rise apartments.  

I was surprised by the light public housing right next to the cruise terminal. I have heard of them, but it didn’t quite register, and I didn’t know the exact location.  

They look complete, but eerily empty.  Not a soul was around.  

They stood neat and tidy, right on the water.  Not the worst place to live.  Getting in and out may be an issue, however, them standing at the far end of the runway.  

I was caught by complete surprise to see a real airplane sitting on grass right in the middle of the light public housing.  It does not seem it will move anytime soon.  

But why is it there?  I suppose it does make some kind of sense that this used to be a runway.  

But still … a real airplane in the middle of a forest of public housing right next to a cruise terminal? 

 

Hole-ly Olive

What is it?  An American football lined up in front of a firing squad?

Actually it started out as an attempt to pay homage to Yayoi Kusama’s (草間 彌生) polka-dotted pumpkins, using pieces of a palm leaf. I couldn’t quite figure out how to make a pumpkin.  So it ended up as an olive, or American football.  

It is made up of 6 slices of a palm leaf, with irregular holes cut into them.  The challenge is to cut the 6 slices into the right convex outline, then to bend them into the right curved shape, and finally glue them together.  It took many trials before I could make it work.  

One of my most satisfying pieces.  

AI and Man

At our Spring Book Club, we are currently discussing the topic “AI and Man”.  AI, of course, stands for Artificial Intelligence.  We are not discussing AI the technology per se.  Rather, we are interested in studying how AI relates to us, human beings.  In order to do that, we do need to know a bit about the technology.  What is AI?  What are artificial neural networks, which seems to be the core technology behind this current generation of AI tools.  

Som people are very optimistic about AI, others are the opposite.  How do we sort them out?  What is it about the technology that make people optimistic, or otherwise?  How are artificial neural networks related to biological neural networks - out brain?  How does AI learn? An AI appears to learn by acquiring information (memory) and then learning to reason from that memory.  But it is so complicated that the process cannot be fully traced and explained.  Is that also how we humans (our brain) learn and think?  

How does AI reason?  And why does it sometimes get it wrong? Creating hallucinations, when it says something that is not in the data that it uses to generate an answer for you. How does that compare to the mistakes that a human makes?  Why do people trust AIs so much?

Does an AI have a mind?  Is AI conscious?  If it is not conscious now, will it become conscious in the future?  Is AI consciousness the same as human consciousness?  If an AI is conscious, like a human, and more intelligent, where does that leave us humans?  

A spiritual person may say a human has a soul.  But what is a soul?  Is a mind really more than a physical body?  A person’s memory is in the brain - the biological neural network.  A mind seems to reside also in the brain.  Is a soul more than a body and a mind?  If so, how does it work?  

The very few people who own these platforms/clouds that encompass the Internet, the various social media, digital markets, AI, etc. own the information that we all contribute to create.  

In return, these clouds make use of these information to influence our behaviour, make money out of us to enrich themselves, and control our lives to a large extent.   How do we respond? 

  

No Impact, No Service, No Learning

Service-Learning is the balanced integration of service and learning.  Students learn to serve the community. At the same time, they learn through serving the community.  Hence the service is the key.  If no service is rendered, it cannot be considered service-learning; and there will not be learning through Service-Learning.  That should be clear. 

Assuming that the students have carried out some project, how does one know whether the project is actually serving the community? One can ask a number of questions. First of all, what social need is it addressing?  Secondly, who is the intended beneficiary?  Thirdly, is it really beneficial for the beneficiary?  Or one can summarise them in one question: is the project making a tangible impact?  

Take the case of a project installing a solar panel to power lighting for a family  previously without electricity.  There is an obvious need - the lack of electricity.  The beneficiary is clearly identified - the family has names and faces, in flesh and blood.  The benefit is also easy to see - even after sunset, the mother can cook and wash, thc children can study, the family can visit their friends, they can listen to their radio, the children do better at school, the family is more productive, they have a better future.  The students receive immediate feedback, from the family themselves.  In this type of projects, stakes are high, and failure is possible.  If one tries to install a set of solar panels but no electricity is generated, the impact can be quite negative.  

Teaching-based projects can be tricky to evaluate.  The team may be teaching science, English, mathematics, artificial intelligence, public health, etc.  How does one determine whether the class has actually learned what was intended?  Theoretically that can be assessed through tests, examination, projects, etc.  Most of the time, however, these are conducted as extra-curricular activities without formal assessments.  It may also not be easy to determine whether the teaching is done well.  In some cases, such as robotics or some engineering projects, the class will build something as a deliverable, which can be a reasonably clear demonstration of learning.  Herein may lie the impact.  

How about studying the impact of cigarette smoking, writing a report on the study, and putting together an exhibition on campus, as an anti-smoking advocacy?  There is a social issue.  There is a target group of recipients - the fellow students in the school.  Is there real benefits for the fellow students?  How does one know whether anyone is better informed?  Whether anyone change their behaviour?  Or even pay any attention to the posters put up on campus?  Projects that aim to educate or benefit the “public” may be difficult to evaluate for impact.  How does not know who has been reached? Who has benefited?  By how much?  

Nowadays it is quite popular for projects to produce videos or other forms of material to advocate certain worthy cause, such as environmental conservation, anti-drug use, etc., to be put on social media, such as YouTube.  However, with such a bewildering glut of viewing and listening material on social networks these days, it is a huge challenge to attract any attention at all. Marketing such material require ingenuity, effort, and perhaps professional skills.  If effort is spent in producing the material, but nobody sees them, there cannot be any meaningful impact on the intended audience.  It would appear that there is no meaningful service.  There is no benefit for, and no feedback from the intended community.  Surely the teacher or some expert can be asked to judge the quality of the material produced.  But this becomes an academic exercise.  Not service-learning.  

If there is no impact, there is no service.  The students may still have learning something.  But if there is no service, it is not service-learning.