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Presentation
Introduction to AI
Stephen Downes, Oct 12, 2023, Invited Talk, Online, via Zoom

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As the title suggests, this is an introduction to artificial intelligence for people with a non technical background, covering how AI systems work, how we can work with them, and some of the issues and ethical concerns that follow. Here's another video showing the participants'-end view.

[Link] [Slides] [Video]

Creating your own OER Foundation-style Libre Self-hosting Infrastructure with Docker Compose and Ubuntu LTS
Dave Lane, OERu Technology Blog, 2023/10/12

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This is another guide from Dave Lane. I've done a lot of this before, in various stages, for other projects (I'll write about them sometime soon). I haven't tested this specific set of instructions, but I know he's benefited (if that's the right word) from the videos of my not-always-successful attempts in the past. See also: Installing Authentik for Authentication and Single-Sign-On. Woo!

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

NIH BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network publishes new wave of momentous research results | BRAIN Initiative
The BRAIN Blog, 2023/10/12

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I think we'll all be a while digesting these findings from the NIH BRAIN Cell Census Network (BICCN) distributed as 24 associated papers published in Science, Science Advances, and Science Translational Medicine. But I wanted to pass this along as soon as possible; this press release came out today. The papers "detail the exceptionally complex diversity of cells in the human brain and the nonhuman primate brain. The studies identify similarities and differences in how cells are organized and how genes are regulated." As the press release notes, " The findings also set the stage for the BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network." It's not an atlas just yet (what would that even look like?) but it's a step along the way.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

How to write better ChatGPT prompts for the best generative AI results
David Gewirtz, ZDNet, 2023/10/12

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For my session today introducing AI to people, I looked up some advice on writing ChatGPT prompts and found this article and its sequel from just this week. It's pretty good advice, including:

• talk to it as if it were a person
• set the stage and provide context
• have the AI assume an identity or profession
• iterate with multiple attempts
• keep it on track
• specify output format
• explicit constraints on responses

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible
Gabe Bullard, Nieman Reports, 2023/10/12

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Well, exactly. "While NPR's main account had 8.7 million followers and the politics account had just under three million, 'the platform's algorithm updates made it increasingly challenging to reach active users; you often saw a near-immediate drop-off in engagement after tweeting and users rarely left the platform,' the memo says." With friends like that... Via Ben Werdmuller.

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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