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OpenAI co-founder on company's past approach to openly sharing research: 'We were wrong'
James Vincent, The Verge, 2023/03/16

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I think this is a significant concern: "as researchers and experts pore over its accompanying materials, many have expressed disappointment at one particular feature: that despite the name of its parent company, GPT-4 is not an open AI model." As the article states, it means there's no real way to know whether is honest, reliable or safe. We can't even know whether the contents of the training set were legally obtained, or whether they were gathered out of secret CIA files on all of us. I'm still enthusiastic about the possibilities of AI, but increasingly sceptical of the business models being employed to produce them. "OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit but later became a 'capped profit' in order to secure billions in investment, primarily from Microsoft, with whom it now has exclusive business licenses." OpenAI's Ilya Sutskever might argue that "it just does not make sense to open-source" but it seems to me this refers to 'business sense' rather than 'safety sense' and is much more about extracting value from the community that made it possible rather than giving back to it.

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Mill's Harm Principle: What is Harm and Does it Matter?
John Danaher, Philosophical Disquisitions, 2023/03/16

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One of the foundational inspirations for my own approach to social and political philosophy is John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. In it, up front, is the harm principle: "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." This is a much more complex idea than might be supposed. Who does the principle govern? What counts as harm? What is an exercise of power over others? Mill gives us some sense of what he means in his other works, and in particular, Utilitarianism. This is a good discussion of the various permutations of the idea, and it should leave you understanding that Mill's argument in no way justifies the more hard-edged libertarian ideas it has been used to support in recent times.

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Indigenous Ways of Knowing, a Faculty's Journey to Redesign Native American Art Online Course
Lindsey Downs, WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies, 2023/03/16

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As an epistemologist I take seriously the challenge posed by the concept of Indigenous ways of knowing. Or anyone's way of knowing. There are parts of it I can easily grasp an understand - the need, for example, to spend time on the land. This has always been an important part of my own learning (though I don't think the HR department sees it that way). But other parts - what I from my western perspective might call 'stories and myths' - leave me more perplexed. I do want there to be some fact of the matter, as much as I recognize that what counts as a fact may vary from one perspective to another. How can we be a part of the same community, if we are not able to agree on how we decide what is true and what is not? The need for us all to live together makes this an imperative, even if it is difficult. I'm not willing to impose my view, as strongly as I may hold it - but I'm also left unsure of where we find that common ground that equates, ultimately, to peace between us. But maybe, what's needed is for us to sit down and make art together. That seems like a start.

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Clive Myrie blasts 'appalling' Fox News lawsuit revelations in speech defending press freedom
Bron Maher, Press Gazette, 2023/03/16

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As readers know, I draw parallels between media and education all the time, because the two fields are engaged in essentially the same activity, and for the same purpose. This article reports on a speech by BBC News presenter Clive Myrie, and in the classic tradition of slanted journalism, the headline is misleading, the coverage (using words like 'claimed') is prejudiced, and the grasp of the issues not particularly nuanced. But we are seeing elements of a backlash both against media and against education - often from the same sources. And I think there's a point to be made here that there is a tension between the idea of 'freedom of the press' (which would allow the press to report whatever it wants) and the 'objectivity of the press' (which would constrain the press to presenting some sort of factual point of view). And yes, while the ultimate ideal is 'the freedom of the press to report what is true', we also know that truth is the first casualty of politics and war. Can education and media survive in a 'post-truth' world? I would counter with: have we ever lived in a world where education and news media have taught only the unvarnished truth?

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On throwing a party. Inclusive practice in Higher Education
Alexandra Mihai, The Educationalist, 2023/03/16

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I'm not sure I've even been to a dinner party. Oh sure, I've been to parties, and even hosted a few memorable ones. But not dinner parties - that feels like a thing people Not Like Me do. People with nice dining rooms and settings for twelve. But I've heard of them (and one of my favourite podcasts, before it ended, was the Dinner Party Download, which gives me a sense of what they're all about). And that's the danger of an analogy, isn't it? It speaks to a particular demographic, a particular mindset. Compared to the chaos of the parties I've attended, the idea of "clear and meaningful structure and sequencing" seems like some sort of foreign language. "A good balance between different types of activities: passive and active, individual, pair and group activities, independent, peer-reviewed, collaborative and tutor-engaged activities" sounds like pre-planned party games to me. Please, no. What kind of host am I? Bring what you can, take what you need, there is no 'host' (except to prevent people from burning the furniture), the right people are the people who are there, the right fun is whatever we decide to do in the moment.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The Case for Full Spectrum 'Inclusive' Credentials
Don Presant, Littoraly Don, 2023/03/16

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The proposal here is for a range or 'spectrum' of credentials, from fully formal to quite informal, to support "recognition as a conversation, at least more than a recruitment filter! So it becomes less about how assessed micro-credentials, 'Verifiable Credentials' and 'Learning and Employment Records' will be able to get you past the filtering algorithm of an employer's Applicant Tracking System in a huge stack of resumes and more about they can become grist for career conversations, examples you can use to help tell your story, differentiate yourself, build trust, be the holistic choice that people want to make at the time of need." I do think that's a better picture - but I can imagine the employer's AI leading the conversation, looking at your online footprint, and asking for insights about such-and-such project or so-and-so experience. There might also be a human present, listening (but not asking anything, because they haven't done the research into the candidate).

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Introducing Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4
Duolingo Blog, 2023/03/16

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Combine GPT-4 with Duolingo language learning and you have what appears to be a powerful tutor. Two features stand out: 'explain my answer', which as the name suggests, helps learners understand why their response was in error; and 'roleplay', which "allows learners to practice real-world conversation skills with world characters in the app." If these features work as advertised, I'm seeing less and less of a need for an 'authentic human connection' to make online language learning work. But I'd have to try it myself to be sure. I tried to actually create and pay for a subscription but it failed with a CORS error, which means the site is not secure. On the bright side, I tried the pre-test for Spanish, got most of the questions right, and was told "I'm clearly not a beginner." I never came close to finding the AI features, despite my efforts. Via Donald Clark on LinkedIn; and now also a blog post. See also IEEE Spectrum, How Duolingo's AI Learns What You Need to Learn.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

radio free fedi - sounds from the fediverse to the universe
radio free fedi, 2023/03/16

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This isn't learning technology, exactly, though the work of setting something like this up is exactly the sort of think I would hope learners try to do. It's a fediverse version of an open radio station streaming MP3 playlists of open access music. More to the point, it's the sort of grassroots technology that made me so enthusiastic about the web in the first place. "We are using open and non-commercial platforms and formats where possible, there are no ads, no third party remote scripts, cookies, trackers, fonts etc unless introduced by your alternative playing app/method." There are two feeds: a regular and a 'comfy' feed (better suited for work, I think; it's definitely more my speed). Via Alan Levine.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

GC Data Conference 2023
Canada School of Public Service, YouTube, 2023/03/16

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Here are the presentation videos for the Canadian government data conference, with each talk being presented in English and in French. See also the full program and list of speakers. I haven't viewed the videos, but felt people might want to see this, and to note that this sort of set of conference recordings is now the new standard.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Distinctively human, now
Matthias Melcher, x28's New Blog, 2023/03/16

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The first line of this post is the most challenging, as Matthias Melcher begins by observing, "Everyone needs to find their response to the question of what humans can do better than an AI." I thought about that for a bit. Is it true? What assumptions are built into it? It's as though we need to be better than a machine to - what? To survive? To find meaning in life? No - we can find better ways to both through, say, social justice, or religion, or through adventure. I for example, will be bikepacking around 1,000 km this summer (I hope - none of my bikepacking plans have survived intact thus far). Sure, a machine (like my car, say) could do the trip much better. Faster. Cheaper. But where's the fun in that? It's not about being better than the machine, to my mind. It never has been.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

We publish six to eight or so short posts every weekday linking to the best, most interesting and most important pieces of content in the field. Read more about what we cover. We also list papers and articles by Stephen Downes and his presentations from around the world.

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