OLDaily

Ten Jobs That Should Be Safe From Automation
Sarah Gonser, The Hechinger Report, 2018/09/21

I hate to say this, but I don't think that the ten jobs in question are at all safe from automation. Here's the list from the embedded video: musicians, art therapists, watch repairers, manufactured building installers, and manicurists and pedicurists. The article also includes technicians, therapists and teachers. You can see the line of thinking - if it involves a hands-on approach, it will resist automation. But, first, I don't think hands-on jobs will be safe - we will find that robots are able to perform highly technical tasks far more competently and efficiently than humans. But more to the point, many of the jobs simply won't be necessary in the future. Why would we need watch repairers? With self-driving electric vehicles, how much demand will there be for mechanics?

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Education at a Glance 2018
OECD, 2018/09/21

The OECD's Education at a Glance report for 2018 is more like a steady gaze, weighing in as a 463 page PDF. You won't need to download the whole thing at once, though, as individual sections and country reports are available as separate documents. The focus of this year's report is on equity in education, and the authors report that parental socioeconomic status continues to be a predictor of education outcome, that while women are making gains in education, men are still favoured in the workforce, and that education for immigrant and refugee populations continues to be a challenge. Canada fares very well internationally, but is not without its challenges, as there continue to be disparities, especially in indigenous communities.

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Is the podcast bubble bursting?
Columbia Journalism Review, 2018/09/21

We may hear a lot about the "short attention span culture" but my favorite podcast runs more than an hour and other faves two hours long. And I don't think the fact that Slate and Buzzfeed have laid off podcasting staff means the podcast bubble is over - I don't think there ever was a bubble, just some hype that didn't pan out for some profit-takers. As long as people do things that require their primary attention - like driving, say, or writing posts in OLDaily - audio will remain a potent medium. And hence, so will podcasting. The fact that it's hard to commercialize just makes it more attractive.

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Physical models and embodied cognition
Ulrich E. Stegmann, Synthese, 2018/09/21

A lot of work in education theory depends on the idea of forming conceptual understanding through the creation of mental models; these models give meaning to the words, ideas and skills being learning. This idea is central to constructivism, and even connectivism relies on it to a certain extent. Recent work in philosophy has considered the question of whether the physical construction of models is important. This is what might be called 'embodied cognition'. There's no doubt that creating a physical model helps cognition; that's why we write down ideas or play with bricks rather than doing it all abstractly in our heads. But does the cognition extend to these models - if we we use blocks, or pencil markings, or a computer, is this a case not only of embodied cognition but also of distributed cognition? Ulrich E. Stegmann argues in this paper that it is not. I'm inclined to agree, but it's not straightforward. Image: Chemero, Radical Embodied Cognitive Science.

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The Value of Consciousness and Free Will in a Technological Dystopia
Allan McCay, Journal of Evolution and Technology, 2018/09/21

"According to Harari, we face a bleak future, and may become economically useless, as a result of being superseded by non-conscious AI and/or enhanced humans." This paper argues that we will not be economically useless, but bases this conclusion on an incorrect understanding of AI as algorithm, which leads to the mistaken conclusion that there is a special economic benefit to free will.  The question I ask when I read this paper is why the metric of the future must be "value" and "worth". Being "economically useless" is a bad thing only if economic usefulness is needed in order to survive, but in a world where AIs produce everything, why would that be the case? Happy will be the day when we no longer need economics, or 'economic worth', in order to survive. We can aspire to being more than bean counters.

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