Rewatching ST:DS9 The wormhole is opening and closing for no apparent reasons. The Bajorans think it’s a sign from the Prophets; Sisko is convinced there’s a scientific explanation. Dax has been pranking Odo — breaking into his quarters while’s regenerating in his liquid state and slightly rearranging his furniture. A security video reveals that a…
Be careful of the parts of news stories that rely on ifs and coulds and maybes. Having said that, this is fascinating exploration of what’s at stake. It’s a fact that OpenAI’s business model involved training its large-language model on copyrighted material, without acquiring legal permission to do so, and without any mechanism to share…
I’m sad thinking of all the students whose academic careers and personal intellectual growth will suffer because they depend on generative text software — whether or not they get “caught” for plagiarism. In my mind, the fundamental error that almost everyone is making is in believing that Generative AI is tantamount to AGI (general purpose…
Whether a source is biased towards the left or right is not as important as to whether the story depends on facts and fact-dense analysis (best), fact-supported and fair opinions (okay), or taunts, propaganda, and fabrications (fringe stuff that’s harmful to our civic well-being). This version of the Ad Fontes chart shifts the AP a…
In a writing-intensive class, students need to write extensively to the point that the teacher cannot possibly grade all of it. — Edutopia via NCTE Good advice from an article by Kara Douma, reprinted by NCTE. I need to hear that. The referees don’t score every practice. The coaches don’t give you feedback after…
The Marion County Record reported that restaurant owner Kari Newell kicked their staff out of a public forum last week. When a third party told the paper that same restaurant owner had a DUI conviction that could have affected her eligibility to get a liquor license, the paper chose not to run the story. “We…
The results showed that out of the 512 questions, 259 (52%) of ChatGPT’s answers were incorrect and only 248 (48%) were correct. Moreover, a whopping 77% of the answers were verbose. […] According to the study, the well-articulated responses ChatGPT outputs caused the users to overlook incorrect information in the answers. “Users overlook incorrect information…
OpenAI has already taken a toll on human workers. It’s chilling to contemplate that students and creatives are comfortable with relying on this product in any meaningful way. The business model depends on devaluing human labor, and benefitting the powerful. The 51 moderators in Nairobi working on Sama’s OpenAI account were tasked with reviewing texts,…
Rewatching ST:DS9 At the bar, Dax performs magic tricks that amuse Bashir and annoy Quark. Sisko lets Dax know a Dr. Lenara Kahn is coming to the station with a Trill science delegation, and suggests Dax use her some of her personal leave. Clearly troubled, Dax says she won’t let her past lives interfere with…
Rewatching ST:DS9 New-to-me episode in which Kira teams up with an enemy to solve the mystery of a Cardassian ship that disappeared six years ago, along with its Bajoran prisoners. An old friend from Kira’s resistance days has found a chunk of metal from the Ravinok. Knowing that Kira knew someone aboard that ship, Odo…
Rewatching ST:DS9 Worf grumbles to Kira that Odo seems permissive about Quark’s shady doings. On a runabout, O’Brien stops himself just before saying he wishes Keiko were more like Bashir. Plot contrivance particles get the runabout crashed on a planet and the spacebros captured by Jem’Hadar ground forces before the opening credits roll. The leader…
I was searching for how to change the default font in the WordPress editor, but the answers I was getting were overwhelmingly for how to change what the user sees in published posts, which I already know how to do. Bing’s response was right on target. It probably helped that I knew the specific name…
I joined Twitter for the first time during a session at an academic conference, and since then have mostly used it to keep in touch with academics who share my professional interests. But many of those professional contacts feel about Twitter the way I do, and have moved much (though not all) of their activity…
How is AI going to change individuals and society in the not-too-distant future? AI will obviously make it easier to produce disinformation—from fake images to deepfakes to fake news. That will affect people’s sense of trust as they’re scrolling on social media. AI can also allow someone to imitate your loved ones, which further erodes people’s…
As Mike Edwards notes, “AI doomers will eagerly tweet this article, unaware that it’s not about the dangers of LLMs: it’s about *information literacy*”
In a cringe-inducing court hearing, a lawyer who relied on A.I. to craft a motion full of made-up case law said he “did not comprehend” that the chat bot could lead him astray.
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It was time to download Google Chrome on a new Windows 11 computer. I typed “Chrome” into the Microsoft Edge search bar. I was greeted with a full-screen Microsoft Bing AI chatbot window, which promptly told me it was searching for… Bing features. Source: Microsoft has no shame: Bing spit on my ‘Chrome’ search with a…
What would you do? Today I wrote 192 lines of ChoiceScript code to address this journalism lesson. Similar:Notes on Teaching August Wilson's Pittsburgh CycleAP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its jou…This morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage of crowds circling a mosque in Mecca. For m…My crowd…
The very useful “media bias chart” is one of several useful ways to classify sources of journalism. While individual items published by any of these sources can vary considerably from the general location depicted in this chart, the takeaway message is that journalism can still be valid and useful even if it has a slant,…
The other day I got a last-minute request to video a show. I usually like to watch a dress rehearsal first, which gives me the chance to check out my equipment and get a sense of where the important action will take place. But yesterday I had to go in cold, and I felt a…