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Welcome to Online Learning Daily, your best source for news and commentary about learning technology, new media, and related topics.

AI and the American Smile. How AI misrepresents culture through
jenka, Medium, 2023/03/30

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This is some clever commentary based on a clever AI prompt. The commentator jenka writes, "In the same way that English language emotion concepts have colonized psychology, AI dominated by American-influenced image sources is producing a new visual monoculture of facial expressions." To be fair, the actual prompt instructs the AI that "Everyone smiling directly at the camera." And the photos of stern-faced people jenka uses as comparisons "too come with an imposed, outside perspective." So what do we make of it? Well, to me, what we have here is a question related to the semantics of subjunctive conditionals. There are no real photos of, say, Aztec warriors taking a selfie, so what would such a photo look like? It depends (perhaps) on what you think the closest relevant possible world looks like. Are all Aztec warriors stern-faced? There's no way to know. But the vast majority of selfies depict people smiling broad American smiles. What else would the AI do? Why would you suppose it should do anything differently? Related: Evgeny Morozov draws a number of similar conclusions about what an AI would or should do, with no real consideration of what would make these claims true or false.

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Can Mastodon seize the moment from Twitter?
Nilay Patel, The Verge, 2023/03/30

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This article was published on Tuesday but you can tell how old it is by noting it still puts Mastodon usage at 2 million people (it passed the 10 million mark last week). It also feels like I've read it before, but I checked, and no, it's new. Anyhow, the article is a good glimpse into the thinking of founder and CEO Eugen Rochko. The best quote: "What (Venture Capital firms) seem to be interested in is, 'We'll give you money now and you don't have to think about monetizing, but in two years, let's figure out how we could turn your open-source project around.' That's kind of a no-go zone for me. It's a trap. It's clearly against our project's ideals."

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Could the US government actually block people from accessing TikTok altogether?
BBC News, 2023/03/30

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The debate around TikTok is most noticably filled with misinformation and hype, even from the BBC (which asserts "if your device's phone number begins 1, TikTok knows you're in the US", which is false, as every Canadian with a phone knows). There are concerns about the app collecting user data and sharing information, something pretty much every app does, so far as I can tell (so you shouldn't install TikTok on government devices, just as you should not install Facebook, Instagram or Twitter). The bigger concern is that "it's shaping the worldview of a lot of young people, and that can directly influence how they vote, how they view the world, the decisions that they make." This, again, is something other apps do as well; the distinction seems to be that the foreign influence is coming from China rather than Russia. As a Canadian I am concerned about both, and also about unwelcome political influence from south of our border. But the answer to this isn't to ban apps or support the sort of repressive measures employed by less free nations. We can find better and more enlightened solutions.

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Should AI be STOPPED?
Vicki Davis, Cool Cat Teacher Blog, 2023/03/30

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Vicki Davis has some pointed words (which which I am in total agreement) on the architects of the supposed AI pause: "Do we not see that unbridled access to social media is also killing their mental health," she writes. "We are algorithmically engineering the demise of a generation and no one is standing up and holding tech giants accountable." While we're talking about killing mental health, I would include television in this list. Davis continues, "So, now we're going to let this group of people shown to exhibit behavior more protective of their self interests than our children determine the future of the human race? I didn't see Apple building any child protection into their devices all these years and now suddenly Steve Wozniak cares about the future of the human race? I'm not saying he doesn't care, but I am saying that we needed to act on algorithms far before now."

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TERMIUM Plus
Government of Canada, 2023/03/30

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TERMIUM Plus is the Government of Canada's terminology and linguistic data bank. It is described as "one of the largest terminology and linguistic data banks in the world" and "gives you access to millions of terms in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. You can find terms, abbreviations, definitions and usage examples in a wide range of specialized fields. The data bank is an essential tool for understanding an acronym, checking an official title, finding an equivalent in another language, and much more." Among the many many resources: how to use the terms 'Inuit' and 'Inuk'.

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Is ChatGPT the new buzz in Higher Education?
Ana-Paula Correia, 2023/03/30

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The answer, of course, is 'yes'. This is a decent if introductory article describing how a Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) might be used in higher education. For example, "One of the key areas where ChatGPT can make a significant impact is in automating administrative tasks. For example, ChatGPT can answer frequently asked questions and provide course information freeing up valuable time for teachers." What strikes me in this article is how we're at the first stage of the SAMR technology adoption model - 'substitution'. It's the later stages that interest me most. P.S. I know the sculpture in the image well. It's one of my favourite pieces. I've had meetings high up in that building, and stood and taken photos from inside the head.

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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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