OLDaily

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

Home Taping Is Killing Music: When the Music Industry Waged War on the Cassette Tape During the 1980s, and Punk Bands Fought Back
Ted Mills, Open Culture, 2023/07/25

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I made mixtapes when I was young, not very many, but they meant a lot to me (I still have some of them). As this article makes clear, they didn't kill the music industry (though you'd never know from the caterwauling). In fact, I developed a fondness for music that led me to buy the same song on vinyl, cassette, 8-track, and CD - and now I 'rent' the song on streaming music. But you know - I still record my own 'mixtapes'. My streaming service (Prime, which I pay for) won't allow me to mix concert recordings, my own recordings, and its own officially sanctioned (and incomplete) music library. So as I write this I'm listening to a CBC (which I pay for) video on YouTube Premium (which I pay for) and using Video Download Helper (which I paid for) to make an MP3 so I can put it on my Pixel phone (which I paid for) and listen to Tegan and Sara for free while I'm out bikepacking beyond the range of cell service. But oh! Please tell me how I'm killing the music industry making mixtapes.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Emotion is the new ID
Clark, Learnlets, 2023/07/25

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I said on Mastodon today that "The challenge over time, I think, will be to prove that there is something *different* about human reasoning over-and-above what GPT-4 and successors are doing. This challenge will get more and more difficult over time." This is an example of what I mean. " When I say AI doesn't really understand, I mean more, however. It's syntactically manipulating to generate semantics, but semantics is still largely cognitive. Yet as humans, we're affective (personality) and conative (motivation) as well. In short, we're emotional (not purely rational). Context matters." Well I agree we are these things - the question is whether there's any reason in principle why a computer couldn't be. Image: Buddy, the emotional robot.

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Turnitin AI Detection Rates: 3.3% of 65M Papers Reviewed Were Flagged as Majority AI Writing
Kristal Kuykendall, Campus Technology, 2023/07/25

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Some interesting items in this article: "98% of education institutions using Turnitin have enabled the AI writing detection feature." That's 65 million papers - 3.3% of which were (says Turnitin) containing 80% or more AI-written text, and 10.3% containing at least 20%. I should note that it's not yet clear that AI detection rates by Turnitin or anyone else are accurate. But the article - basically a quick rewrite of this press release - doesn't mention that. I wonder whether an AI author would have offered more complete coverage. (The press release was also cut-and-pasted by eSchool News. I'd be embarassed.)

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Here's why Elon Musk's rebranding of Twitter to 'X' is good, actually
Aria Alamalhodaei, TechCrunch, 2023/07/25

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Maybe Elon Musk's rebranding of Twitter to 'X' was actually good? This short post makes its point better than I could, except that I'd add: Twitter's new slogan should be: X it.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

New visa programs spark brain drain fears across Africa
Rest of World, 2023/07/25

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As a Canadian, I am very supportive of immigration. This especially applies to refugees fleeing conflict and persecution. Last year, Canada welcomed close to 500,000 new residents. It's a drop in the bucket on a planet with 8 billion people, but the point being made here is well taken, as many new Canadians are the best educated from places like Africa. As our government reports, in Canada, "Immigrants account for 36% of physicians, 33% business owners with paid staff, and 41% of engineers." I think that we in Canada have an obligation to make this up to origin countries (at least, those that are not actively forcing people out through war and oppression). We do it for hockey players. We should do it for doctors, accountants and engineers. And we should make sure origin countries do not lack for these skills because of any actions on our part.

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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