OLDaily

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

Share Knowledge with Perplexity Pages
Miguel Guhlin, Another Think Coming, 2024/05/31

---

Miguel Guhlin shares this announcement on Perplexity Pages, touted as "a simple way to turn your research into visually appealing articles. With formatted images and sections, Pages lets you share in-depth knowledge on any topic...log into your Perplexity account, head to your Library to create a Page. Choose your topic, and let Pages guide you through the content creation process on desktop." Here's his can sample page.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

Maybe too many people go to university
Paul Wiltshire, WonkHe, 2024/05/31

---

Paul Wiltshire, we are told, "argues that we need a proper debate about student numbers." By this he means 'fewer'. His main argument is this: "it is obvious that the majority of the jobs that society needs performing (a high proportion of which are manual or administration based, low to medium skilled, or managerial – but not actually academic) don't actually need the incumbent to have spent their first three or four years of their adult life studying an academic course." He also argues against the idea that it is the academic education that explains graduates' higher pay: "the university cohort will be those who are not only on average more academic, but also more hard working and more conformist – so it is little wonder there is a career pay premium for this cohort." These are both stunningly bad arguments but not at all surprising in a post that argues against access to education.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

The Danger Of Superhuman AI Is Not What You Think | NOEMA
Shannon Vallor, NOEMA, 2024/05/31

---

I'll probably move on from this type of post in the future, but for now it remains relevant, especially for educators. Shannon Vallor writes, "the most ordinary human does vastly more than the most powerful AI system, which can only calculate optimally efficient paths through high-dimensional vector space and return the corresponding symbols, word tokens or pixels." Human intelligence, argues Vallor, is fundamentally different from AI. I think it's a bit of a straw man to point to the obviously limited capacities of today's AI. The argument is, "Why would a machine that works on silicon not be able to perform any of the computations that our brain does?" And what would the brain be doing other than computations?

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

Purpose
Mark William Johnson, Daily Improvisation, 2024/05/31

---

I think there's a danger in speculating about biomechanical motives for actions. Such is the case here. Here, Mark William Johnson is responding to Michael Foot, who responds, "we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves." Johnson, referencing epigenetics, suggests, "The uncomfortable fact may be that without the cruelty and selfishness, there can be no progress." That would be sad if true. But I am convinced that reality is rather more complex and subtle, at least to the extent that we can at least imagine doing away with cruelty, if not also selfishness.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

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.

There are many ways to read OLDaily; pick whatever works best for you:

• Read in your web browser on this web page, updated weekdays
• Receive a daily or weekly email newsletter by subscribing here
• Subscribe to the RSS feed using your favourite feed reader
• Follow @OLDaily@mastodon.social on Mastodon or elsewhere in the fediverse
• Follow @OLDaily on Twitter
• Integrate the open API using the JSON feed