What was I thinking 2024.03.15
Most innovation fails. Most innovation is useless at the low end, and detrimental at the high end. This is the case in education. There is always a new fad for educators to follow. But it still takes the same time today, as it did 50 years ago, to teach a child how to read, add or subtract.
There is no magic shortcut that makes learning faster for most people.
https://www.educationnext.org/how-to-be-right-80-of-the-time-in-education/
AI is another magic shortcut. Somehow people have deluded themselves (or been deluded by vendors) that a statistical model can replace human beings in hard, creative, tasks that require coordination with other humans working on hard, creative, tasks. Trying to build a video game, with only AI, is like trying to reach the moon by building a ladder.
https://www.ign.com/articles/video-game-made-purely-with-ai-failed-because-tech-was-unable-to-replace-talent?utm_source=instagram,threads,twitter
I often wonder if the current fascination with polyamory is a cry for community. People want to be loved and often there seems to be a societal push towards individualism, anonymity, and atomization. People are feeling smaller and smaller and more alone, and the promise of a community, draws people into situations that can turn extractive, and in this case, violent.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/nyregion/hacienda-sex-club-consent.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
Private equity (and aggressive, unchecked consolidation) seems to be bad for workers, customers, and the general public. But it’s very good business for the people who buy the businesses.
https://defector.com/jim-spanfeller-is-a-third-rate-parasite
If you are lucky enough to land a tenure track job, do not wait until you have tenure to do the research you care about. Especially if the work you care about may be under attack. If they’re going to fire you, they’re going to fire you. So in the mean time, follow your interests as far as they will take you.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/guest-blog/the-awesomest-7-year-postdoc-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-tenure-track-faculty-life/
Everyone is looking for ways to save time and effort and get their lives back. But relying on chatgpt to grade papers is not a good move. These models have no relationship to accuracy. Grading should have a relationship to accuracy.
https://www.axios.com/2024/03/06/ai-tools-teachers-chatgpt-writable
I don’t want to have to have a car. But if I have to have a car, I want this car.
https://www.caranddriver.com/dodge/charger-daytona-ev-2024
Every era of science fiction makes its villains from real fears in the either. Nuclear bombs gave us Godzilla. Fear of automation gave us robots. Transphobia gave us the machines and the matrix. What is this century’s fear and what monster will give us?
https://kschroeder.substack.com/p/the-science-fiction-of-the-1900s