Stephen Downes

This article from Bluesky's CTO begins with the premise that "the point of decentralization is to guarantee the rights of individuals and communities on the Internet. Pulling that off is a balancing act between practicality and ideology." It is on this basis that he describes Bluesky's hybrid structure. "Atproto isn't federation. It isn't p2p. It isn't blockchains. It's a direct attempt at practical decentralization, tradeoffs and all. We sacrificed properties of the magical mesh to hit the performance needs, and we broke from the history of federation to get the guarantees we wanted." I have a lot of sentimental attachment to Mastodon and ActivityPub, but I also recognize that there's a lot of smart thinking behind Bluesky at the ATmosphere Protocol.

"More and more students now have their worldviews shaped not by textbooks or lectures but by endlessly scrolling feeds, carefully tailored by algorithms they rarely think about," writes Olivia Kelly. It raises the question of how we should teach students about them (I'll just assume that the answer to the question in the headline is 'yes'). "Social media algorithms consistently reinforce ideological homogeneity, limit viewpoint diversity, and intensify polarization among young users." But we need to say more here than simply that students should be educated, just as we need to do more than simply block access to young people. Social media is just one part of a broader media landscape that includes all other media, online and offline, intelligent or otherwise, all of which shape a person's perspective. Just being aware of this would be a start, but knowing how to preserve one's agency and identity in such a landscape is a much taller task.

If you haven't yet heard about Einstein, the AI-powered student assistant, don't worry. It's gone. The whole thing came and went within a week. Here's how Einstein (from companion.ai) pitched itself: "Einstein is an AI with a computer. He logs into Canvas every day, watches lectures, reads essays, writes papers, participates in discussions, and submits your homework - automatically. It was breathlessly announced by tech media. Unsurprisingly, people reacted with hostility. Futurism reported the creator as saying "We've also gotten threats from educators to take it down or we won't 'sleep well' and how we're causing the downfall of society." But wait: Michelle Kassorla tried it and freaked out. "I was only recording for 2:30 minutes when I discovered that Einstein is just a wrapper over OPENCLAW! AAAAAAAH I had just installed an agent that runs in the terminal in my son's computer - potentially exposing EVERYTHING on it to the agent." It seems it's more of a nuisance than anything. "It isn't clear if it was a hoax, a failed app launch, or piece of tech posing as performance theater," writes Marc Watkins.

I'm not sure this 20 minute video will teach you how to use Git (probably not) but it does go a long way toward making one of the world's most user-hostile pieces of software a bit more accessible or ordinary humans. What we need now is a user interface design that is as clear as this video. It's the era of vibe coding - surely someone can do something.

This is a long-form authoring took that hooks into your Mastodon account. The creator writes on Reddit, "You can sign in with your existing Mastodon account, so there's no need to create a separate one. You can also follow any Inkwell user directly from your Mastodon instance, and their journal entries will appear in your home feed like any other post." It has encounterred a few issues out of the gate, but the idea is sound. It's just another example of what people are building day in the fediverse ecosystem (likely with AI assistance).

This is a pretty good article outlining the views of Sven Nyholm, a professor of ethics of AI at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. The argument is a two parter: first, we determine what is meaningful to us, and then second, we determine whether AI is taking away from this. As a philosopher myself I have resisted being drawn into 'meaning of life' arguments because they are a chimera. Nothing, not even life, is inherently meaningful (indeed, 'meaning', properly so-called, is a property of words and sentences, not people, and 'value', properly so called, is a property of things, not people). We decide what is meaningful, that is, we decide what stands for what. Including life. If AI leaves us with nothing to do but ride the bike or wash the bowl, then these are what is meaningful. This idea that we must develop this or that skill is based mostly on the idea that we must work, that we must repair society, or at the very least, repair ourselves. I value being able to do hard things, but I see no reason why I should forces this bit of personal psychology on others. If AI makes people's lives easier, I'm fine with that. I'm more than fine.