Stephen Downes

So Google Search has started giving me AI-generated 'answers' when I type in a search term, not realizing (apparently) that when I opet to 'search' I am seeking to find documents, not get answers. There's a difference between the two, as Tony Hirst argues: "Being given an answer in response to a shonky natural language prompt is one thing. But it does not help you come to an understanding. Skimming through a set of resources and realising they do not provide the answer tells you something. Search for documents that may help you get to an answer tells you something." The reason why I search is that I want to understand what different people say about the same thing. 

This is "an open letter calling on Canada's tech industry to uphold inclusion, equity, and accountability." As the authors write, "Thousands of us — entrepreneurs, marketers, engineers, and support staff— have built Canada into the global tech leader it is today. We did this not by shutting people out, but by welcoming talent from every background." I agree with this. As my own work in knowledge and learning has shown, values like diversity and openness aren't simply moral goods, they are what all individuals and societies to learn, grow, and adapt.

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OK, I don't think anyone needs an agent that will do their online shopping for them. But let's ignore this trivial example and focus on what's interesting: the AI being described here operates in the browser. We're not relying on some third-party cloud AI like Claude or ChatGPT, our data and our interactions stay local. Obviously this is in trial mode, and not all of Opera's innovations achieve wider use (ok, tbh, few of them do) but there's something genuinely useful here, especially if combined with model context protocol (MCPs).

A couple of things from this sponsored post from Canada's Library of Parliament. First, "Parliament: The Classroom Experience is a new travelling classroom program, which takes students into the heart of democracy in virtual reality (VR). Using the provided equipment, learners go on an immersive journey inside Centre Block." And second, "Educators hoping to deepen their understanding of Canadian civics can also apply to the Teachers Institute on Canadian Parliamentary Democracy, (a) week-long professional development opportunity allows teachers to engage directly with parliamentarians."

My understanding of 'democracy' is as valid in China as it is in Canada as it is elsewhere: it is, as I say in my vision statement, "where each person is able to rise to his or her fullest potential without social or financial encumbrance, where they may express themselves fully and without reservation through art, writing, athletics, invention, or even through their avocations or lifestyle." That has never been a problem for either my readers or my employers, and while I've stayed away from traditional partisan politics, it has never been an issue for me to push back against the wealthy and powerful who "break the rules in pursuit of personal and economic power at the expense of safety and user protections, all while wrapping themselves in the flag of 'innovation'", as Mike Masnick says in this article. It is the changes that have been happening in society, not just south of the border, but also in our own corporate-owned media and in societies around the world were advocacy for democracy has become a politically-charged statement. I'm with Mike: "So, here's the bottom line: when WaPo's opinion pages are being gutted and tech CEOs are seeking pre-approval from authoritarians, the line between 'tech coverage' and 'saving democracy' has basically disappeared. It's all the same thing."

I did not know that "the dominant school of chemical education researchers appears to support a variety of (constructivist and relativist) positions" but it does not surprise me that it is true. Even without reference to "the views of Herron, Spencer, and Bodne" the whole idea of a lot of science education is to give students hands-on see-for-yourself exposure to scientific principles and scientific methodology. This article (11 page PDF) argues against that approach, mostly with statements like, "the statement that 'truths are independent of the context in which they are observed' is essentially correct" and "the statement that 'knowledge is constructed' is either plainly incorrect or so uncontroversial as to be superfluous." This to me represents a naive understanding not only of science but also of language; the terms 'correct' or 'true' literally mean 'correct in a model' or 'true in a model' (or else they mean nothing at all; pick one).