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Modeling Minds (Human and Artificial)
Benjamin Riley, Cognitive Resonance, 2024/07/02

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Benjamin Riley posted this article a couple months ago and referenced it in a discussion today on the nature of intelligence. The focus here is on higher order skills and the role they play in intelligence (indeed, what we describe as 'intellegence' often referes to these skills directly). The main argument here is that while large language models (LLM) may surpass humans in specific domains, they cannot transfer that learning into other domains. In fact, there is a domain in AI called transfer learning, which I don't address in my reply to Riley, but I could.

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Exploring Preference Signals for AI Training - Creative Commons
Catherine Stihler, Creative Commons, 2024/07/02

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According to Creative Commons, "through engagement with a wide variety of stakeholders, we heard frustrations with the 'all or nothing' choices they seemed to face with copyright...  way of making requests about some uses, not enforceable through the licenses, but an indication of the creators' wishes." In particular, they want to be able to limit the use of their work to train AI. I commented in a meeting today that it was telling that this, of all possible preferences, is the one that surfaced as most significant. I would rank 'use of content to create weapons' or 'use of content to undermine social good' as more significant preferences. I also commented that, without access to open content, AI will be created and trained exclusively by commercial entities with licnesing agreements, which will mean there is no possibility of an open artificial intelligence.

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2025 Open Access Policy
Gates Open Access Policy, 2024/07/02

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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Open Access Policy is being updated for next year. It applies to all Gates funded manuscripts starting in January. It mandates preprints "as a preprint in a preprint server recognized by the foundation or preapproved preprint server." It requires a CC By 4.0 license on publications, though grantees retain copyright. The foundation will not pay article processing charges (APC) but doesn't rule out grantees paying the costs. And it asserts "underlying data supporting the Funded Manuscripts shall be made accessible immediately and as open as possible upon availability, subject to any applicable ethical, legal, or regulatory requirements or restrictions." The policy is broadly endorsed and (I am told) offered to governments as an example to emulate for their own open access policy. Image: Open Access Network.

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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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