OLDaily

Are Algorithms the Answer?
Sara Weissman, Inside Higher Ed, 2021/07/01

When I tell people that AI will replace tests and assignments to grade people and award certifications, they think I am talking about the far future. But while it will still take years, maybe decades, for this to be widely deployed, this future is already a lot closer than many people realize. This article is a case in point. Here's the gist, based on a working paper (53 page PDF) from the National Bureau of Economic Research: "An experiment suggests colleges can help students bypass remedial courses for college-level classes by using algorithms instead of placement tests to predict academic outcomes." What's significant is that not only does the AI appear to do the job at least as well as tests, they also may make the entire process more equitable.

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Understanding cancel culture: Normative and unequal sanctioning
First Monday, 2021/07/01

Given the events of the last year and a half this is an interesting and topical discussion, but I want to be clear that the act 'to cancel' is something that came into existence only when people of privilege began facing consequences for their actions. That's why it's not surprising to find some forms of cancellation (like the 'Karen' phenomenon) specifically targeting a less privileged class. And (again in my view) the idea of 'cancel culture' is about those people of privilege appropriating the language of people who have very genuinely faced discrimination from that same privileged class. It's like they're saying "what you're doing to us is the same as what we've done to you," when of course there's utterly no comparison. Now, having said that, the interesting parts of this post revolve around what what 'cancellation' is (I would ask, are social norms really enforced by individuals calling out transgressions) and who is responsible (is it 'cancellation' only if it results in sanctions by employers, advertisers, and other authorities?).

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Is the edX Acquisition a Big Deal?
Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, 2021/07/01

There is quite a bit of good discussion in this post from Michael Feldstein on the EdX acquisition, but it really comes down to the last paragraph, which sums it up for me as well: "I’m not particularly interested in the vague promises of two rich universities to do good in the world with their $700 million windfall from a non-profit that was supposed to educate the whole world. I’d like to see a credible plan this time, including a theory of change." This, I think, would be a tall order, given that the primary raison d'être for the xMOOC was to prevent real change from happening.

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How to Record Your Own Audio Narration
Tom Kuhlmann, The Rapid E-Learning Blog, 2021/07/01

Overall this isn't a bad post, but it does include some errors (like this one: "a headset mic helps because it is omnidirectional and will only record audio from one direction" - 'omnidirectional' means the opposite of that). That said, do pay attention to your microphone - it amazes me that people spend thousands of dollars on a computer system and try to save $20 buying a cheap microphone. Also, pay attention to background noises, especially if you're recording ina  cubicle (which I wouldn't recommend) - sound systems will sometimes amplify them in an effort to 'flatten' audio to the same volume.

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The Shape of Techno-Moral Revolutions: Lessons from Carlota Perez
John Danaher, Philosophical Disquisitions, 2021/07/01

These are some reflections on morality stimulated by Carlota Perez's book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital. It takes a long time to popularize a new technology, writes Perez, because "a highly visible 'attractor' needs to appear, symbolizing the whole new potential and capable of sparking the technological and business imagination of a cluster of pioneers." The same sort of thinking might be applied to changes in our conception of morality. "There are morally significant events -- these are the historical occurrences that awaken the moral conscience and tip it into a new mode of thinking. Second, there are the moral pioneers -- these are specific individuals that help symbolise a new mode of moral thinking." These combine to form a new "techno-moral paradigm" that results when technologies change "the cost-benefit ratio for certain decisions.

But new technologies sometimes force new conceptions of morality. "To take advantage of the economic potential of mass automation, a social reckoning may be in order. For instance, redistributive policies may need reform to compensate for the loss of income associated with automation (and to prevent a collapse of consumer demand). The basic income guarantee is the most widely discussed of these policy reforms. In addition to this, education and training systems may also need reform. The goal of such institutions may no longer be to train the next generation of workers but to encourage the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake or to develop their civic responsibilities and sense of public duty."

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How Are Today’s Philosophers Philosophical?
Justin Weinberg, Daily Nous, 2021/07/01

This article offers us three distinct ways of 'being philosophical' (quoted):

• Philosophy is an applied science. It’s the machine-tool industry of the mind. We make the intellectual tools that make the intellectual tools.
• A response of a certain kind to the imperative of the Delphic oracle: “Know thyself.” And,
• Central questions that somehow don’t go away... How should you live? What can you know, what should you do, and what can you hope for, what is it to be a human being? What’s the meaning of life?

I don't think any of these captures what I think of as philosophy. For me, philosophy means looking at things more deeply than we might otherwise, asking the questions people don't ask and chipping away at the foundations of common wisdom.

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