Author Archives: Katherine Wikoff

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About Katherine Wikoff

I am a college professor (PhD in English, concentration rhetoric) at Milwaukee School of Engineering, where I teach film and media studies, political science, digital society, digital storytelling, writing for digital media, and communication. While fragments of my teaching and scholarship interests may quite naturally meander over to my blog, this space is intended to function as a creative outlet, not as part of my professional practice. Opinions are my own, etc.

The Saga of My Pumpkin Illustration (aka, ChatGPT’s comical failure)

Posted on October 6, 2025 by Katherine Wikoff

On Friday I posted my comparison of Public AI’s attempt at writing an autumn poem versus ChatGPT’s—a head-to-head challenge that ChatGPT won handily. Then to illustrate my post, I asked ChatGPT to create a quick, simple image of pumpkins for … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Creativity, design, generative AI | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Apertus (Public AI) versus ChatGPT in a poetry challenge

Posted on October 3, 2025 by Katherine Wikoff

I love the idea of the Swiss AI Initiative’s Apertus and Public AI. As sort of the Linux of LLMs, Apertus, via the Public AI Initiative, aspires to democratize generative AI: Public AI refers to the development, deployment, and maintenance … Continue reading →

Posted in Creative Practice in the Age of AI, Creativity, generative AI, Learning, poetry, Writing with AI, Writing, blogging | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Posted on October 2, 2025 by Katherine Wikoff

Well. I’ve never cried in a museum before, but the Edmund Fitzgerald exhibition at the Grohmann Museum had me in tears yesterday afternoon. I was making my way through the special exhibit’s gallery, looking at photographs and paintings of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Life, Milwaukee | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Getting in on the discussion of F. Scott Fitzgerald and football’s two-platoon system

Posted on September 29, 2025 by Katherine Wikoff

This morning, I noticed that a blog post I wrote 11 years ago was getting lots of views, and traffic seemed to be coming from both Reddit and Bluesky. So I did some quick digging and found that, for whatever … Continue reading →

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Sunset, Milwaukee

Posted on September 27, 2025 by Katherine Wikoff

Heading east on State Street, stopped at the traffic light at 12th Street. I love the way the sun reflects off the glass of the Aurora Sinai hospital skywalk and, farther east, slightly left of center, the 1000 North Water … Continue reading →

Posted in Milwaukee, Photography | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Portrait of a Textile Worker (and Milwaukee’s Water Tower Dragon)

Posted on September 23, 2025 by Katherine Wikoff

I’m teaching two sections of the freshman composition class at MSOE, and among the things we cover in this course are how to “read” art as a “text” and how to talk about any work of art. We spend about … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Creativity, Milwaukee | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

“Adventures in AI” special exhibition wraps up this weekend

Posted on September 10, 2025 by Katherine Wikoff

If you happen to be in San Francisco in the next couple of days, you might want to check out the final weekend of this temporary exhibit at the Exploratorium museum, running through Sunday (Sept. 14) at Pier 15 on … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital society, generative AI, Technology, Travel | Leave a comment

Wednesday morning, September 10, in downtown Milwaukee

Posted on September 10, 2025 by Katherine Wikoff

Just two photos from my morning drive to work. First, I was on 10th Street just west of the Wisconsin Club, housed in the 1843 mansion built by Alexander Mitchell, founder of the Marine Bank and president of the Chicago, … Continue reading →

Posted in Life, Milwaukee, Photography | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Art on a sunny September day: warm glow, crisp shadow

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Katherine Wikoff

This little work of art sits on the windowsill in my office. I’ve photographed it before. It makes me happy. Today late-morning sun struck at a high angle, casting a well-defined shadow and giving the copper wire a warm, mellow … Continue reading →

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Should AI Get Legal Rights? | WIRED

Posted on September 5, 2025 by Katherine Wikoff

Very interesting article published yesterday in Wired magazine. “Model welfare” is an emerging field of research that seeks to determine whether AI is conscious and, if so, how humanity should respond (e.g., should AI have/deserve “rights”?) — Read on http://www.wired.com/story/model-welfare-artificial-intelligence-sentience/

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