OLDaily

A Moral Duty to Share Data? AI and the Data Free Rider Problem
John Danaher, Philosophical Disquisitions, 2019/08/20

This might seem like a counter-intuitive position at first, but it bears deeper thought. The idea is that, since we all benefit from the fruits of artificial intelligence (AI), we all have an obligation to contribute to it, and what AI needs is our data. It might me that we didn't ask for this benefit, but there are analogies in other benefits we didn't ask for. Herd immunity, for example: this is the idea that if enough people are vaccinated, everybody is protected from the disease, even those who cannot be vaccinated. So there is a moral obligation (it is argued) to get vaccinated. I think this paper could have spent more time considering the objections, but it's a well-crafted argument and gives pause for thought.

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Leading US bosses drop shareholder-first principle
Simon Goodley, Rupert Neate, The Guardian, 2019/08/20

The five new principles at a glance:

• Delivering value to our customers
• Investing in our employees. This starts with compensating them fairly. We foster diversity and inclusion, dignity and respect
• Dealing fairly and ethically with our suppliers
• Protecting the environment by embracing sustainable practices
• Generating long-term value for shareholders

More from NY Times, HBR, WSJ, Bloomberg, Quartz, Axios. As one commenter said, " Paying some taxes would be nice."  Via Metafilter.

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Open educational resources, student efficacy, and user perceptions: a synthesis of research published between 2015 and 2018
John Hilton III, Educational Technology Research and Development, 2019/08/20

This article is a follow-up to a 2016 study by the same author and updates the work with the last three years of research into the efficacy of and perceptions about open educational resources (OER). The article considers whether and how often the studies controlled for student and teacher variables, as well as the strength of the research methodology in general. I would think these types of studies would be more appropriate to open pedagogy rather than OER. And as always I'm not really comfortable with studies depicting OER (or education in general) as some sort of 'treatment', as though it were analogous to medicine. Maybe - maybe - you could do this study for a specific resource, but it's absurd to think you're getting useful data by studying 'efficacy' or 'perceptions' of OER in general.

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Let's Play: No Man's Sky VR
Ben Plays VR, YouTube, 2019/08/20

As readers know, I've been playing No Man's Sky for several years now. I have hundreds of hours of playtime. :) Anyhow, this week was a banner week because of the new release, called 'Beyond', which included a large number of new game features and - best of all - a VR mode. Now I don't have the VR helmet (alas) but it still plays on my screen, so I'm OK. This video, though, introduces the VR mode from the perspective of someone new to the game. Now this game is deep, there's a lot to learn and remember, and it will take a long time to master. So the gameplay and instructions are crucial. It has taken a while for the producers to get to this point, but you'll see from this video a lot of innovation and nuance. Maybe one day I'll do an analysis of No Man's Sky from a learning perspective, but for now, it's going to be my favourite for a long time (and I can't wait to get a VR helmet).

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Slack as a Digital Campus
Arizona State University, 2019/08/20

According to this website, "ASU is using the Slack Enterprise Grid as the communication hub for students, faculty and the staff. Via app integration (Zoom, Google Drive, Dropbox, Polls, etc.), Slack provides direct access to resources for student success." There are several pages here with background resources, slides and video describing the migration to Slack as a digital campus. Slack is "a collaboration hub that enables real-time communications and connections in a searchable platform."

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Frank Ramsey
Fraser MacBride, et.al., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019/08/20

I'm a bit surprised to find that it took this long for an article about Frank Ramsey to appear in the SEP. Then again, Ramsey is an inherently difficult philosopher. But let me offer a very light (and incomplete, and in many ways wrong) version of Ramsey to give you an idea of his thinking. Suppose (Ramsey might say) a statement about probability isn't a statement about the world, but rather, a statement about you. So, for example, saying there's a 60% chance of something means that you would bet 60 to win 40. Does it add anything to say "and oh yeah, there's a thing, 'probability', actually in the world?" Well, no. So what does that tell us about mathematical facts and the nature of 'truth' in general? We call this the "subjectivist interpretation", and it's an important insight into the nature of mathematics and language.

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