I made a logo. I was not expecting to make one, and I didn’t think we needed one. But I was putting together the first batch of public-facing materials (a Google Form to gather emails, a QR code for Sasha to include in her presentation) and I caught myself wanting for a little glyph or icon that could add levity to all the text. This is usually when I look through the emoji library and do some selects of color-coordinated emojis and add them to the “brand book” along with colors, typefaces, etc. I was putting together for Sasha’s presentation, and would eventually become the DNA of our website and other visual assets.  But I couldn’t find any that worked. In other contexts, I would find or make new emojis and add them to the library I’m working with, and this made me wonder if I couldn’t customize one to match our color scheme and, boom logo! We’re going with an adapted, or perhaps “darker” version of the sparkle emoji that so many commercial AI projects use to align themselves with magic and instant satisfaction. So I ended up with a logo, I don’t know how I’ll use it but I’m glad we have it.

I can’t say I am fully satisfied with the work I’ve contributed to my project so far. Bills have to get paid and work got in the way of everything this month and my coursework has definitely suffered. I missed Sasha’s walk through of AI prompting and API usage, which I had asked for because my priority in joining this project was getting close to the datasets and developing my technical proficiencies. I won’t beat myself up over it, but during the upcoming break, I plan on making up for lost time: Sasha was kind enough to record her workshop and I will sit with it quietly and start trying my hand at prompting these models. This will be my first contact with LLMs and I plan on savoring it and really learning from it. In short, I hope to immerse myself in the world of the AI Hallucinations Project so that I can actually prioritize my intellectual curiosity and let go of my fixation on producing and delivering rushed contributions. Time, unfortunately, is the only thing keeping me from getting the most out of this project.

During the upcoming Spring Break, honestly, I am going to catch up on all the work I haven’t done for this project.