OLDaily

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I Would Rather See My Books Get Pirated Than This (Or: Why Goodreads and Amazon Are Becoming Dumpster Fires) | Jane Friedman
Jane Friedman, 2023/08/23

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I suppose it was inevitable: the flood of AI-generated content that will mislead readers and damage author reputations. Jane Friedman writes, "here' what does rankle me: garbage books getting uploaded to Amazon where my name is credited as the author... Whoever's doing this is obviously preying on writers who trust my name and think I've actually written these books. I have not. Most likely they've been generated by AI." We're probab;y very close to a system of verified ID for authors, a sort of ORCID for everyone. But that's not the big issue. Here's what it is: the AI=authored books are currently crap. But what do we do when the AI is writing better than the authors it is emulating?

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Announcing the Tor University Challenge
Thorin Klosowski, Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2023/08/23

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The Onion Router (TOR) has been around for quite a while as an underground tool, but as web surveillance increases the privacy-preserving browser is becoming more mainstream. "Tor is a valuable tool for browsing the web anonymously, but since it's powered by volunteers willing to share some bandwidth and a computer, it's always in need of additional help, which is why EFF is announcing the Tor University Challenge, a project asking universities to start running Tor." I wouldn't recommend running it if you're working in a secure environment as it will rsult in internet security running to your office (they don't like web traffic they can't monitor).

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Inside the elite colleges behind India's tech success
Varsha Bansal, Rest of World, 2023/08/23

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This is a fascinating look at the influence of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). "The IITs' superpower is their tightly knit network of alums. Graduating from an IIT puts you in a special club. Rest of World spoke with IIT students, alums, and professors and discovered just how deeply embedded the schools' network is in the tech ecosystems of India and beyond. At some companies, it's IITians wherever you look. Founders, mentors, advisers? All IIT. The funders? Them too." Clearly the idea was to emulate U.S. elite institutions, but the question has to be asked, has India been helped or hindered by the creation of such an institution?

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MIT Press: Open Access Materials
Internet Archive, 2023/08/23

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While I was out on the road the MIT Press released this large archive of published work on the Internet Archive. Some good stuff in here, for example: The Entangled Brain: How Perception, Cognition, and Emotion Are Woven Together. by Luiz Pessola; Data Feminism, by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein; and How Knowledge Grows: The Evolutionary Development of Scientific Practice, by Chris Haufe.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

The MOOC Guide
Stephen Downes, Internet Archive, 2023/08/23

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Google 'migrated' my Google Sites website documenting the early history of MOOCs, a process that eliminated all of the pages and all the images from the front page. This is a link to the Internet Archive version of the website.

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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