It's a never-ending cycle

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You start a project determined to execute it perfectly. You avoid it until you can “do it right,” but then you don’t do it at all. You feel frozen, stuck, incapable. You are paralyzed by the fear that you will be bad at the thing you want to accomplish. Which, of course, makes it impossible to accomplish anything.

It's a never ending cycle: perfectionism, procrastination, paralysis.

At my best, I am an efficient and organized person. I thrive off of hard work and high pressure, always ambitious, always reaching for the next thing to do or make or achieve. I am productive and full of ideas. I take charge and take action. I keep a clean house and read at least a book a week.

At my worst, I am flighty and frazzled. I spend far more time thinking about how I want to do something than I do actually doing it. I doubt every choice I make, every thought that flits across my mind. I let my apartment get increasingly messy, even though I know how much I need a clean space in order to be happy. I just can’t confront the glaring imperfection of a sink full of dishes, baskets of dirty laundry.

I recede further and further inside of myself.

Jenni Berrett writing in Ravishly

AI definitions: Facial recognition

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Facial recognition - This AI technology uses statistical measurements of a person’s face to identify them against a digital database of other faces. For instance, Clearview AI was trained on billions of images. These AI-powered systems are used to unlock phones, verify passports, and scan crowds at events for malicious actors. It’s used by many US agencies including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. It has a serious problem with false positives and a history of unintended harms and intentional misuse based on racial and gender bias.

More AI definitions here.

Using Peer Pressure to our advantage

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In a 1994 Harvard study that examined people who had radically changed their lives, for instance, researchers found that some people had remade their habits after a personal tragedy, such as a divorce or a life-threatening illness. Others changed after they saw a friend go through something awful... Just as frequently, however, there was no tragedy that preceded people's transformations. Rather, they changed because they were embedded in social groups that made change easier… When people join groups where change seems possible, the potential for that change to occur becomes more real.

Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

14 Articles about How AI Tools are being Used to Create Fakes

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13 Articles about the Impact of AI on Scholarly Research

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The Soul of Science

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Pseudoscience, which are beliefs or practices that look like science on the outside — they ape or mimic many of the qualities of science — but they miss the central components of science that make it so powerful.

Science isn’t about the jargon. It’s not about the mathematics. It’s not about the lab coats and the experiments and the orbiting observatories. 

Science is about curiosity. It’s about rigor. It’s about doubting yourself. It’s about doubting your peers. It’s about applying a strict methodology to problem solving, to arrive at results. That’s the soul of science. That’s what science is really all about. And that’s what many, or all, pseudoscientific beliefs lack.

Astrophysicist Paul M. Sutter quoted in Undark

6 Free Webinars this week about AI, Journalism, Women in Media, & More

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Mon, March 25 - Inspiring women in media and journalism  

Who: Anushka Joshi, a working journalist who is on the 2024 Forbes 30 under 30 list and founder of GEN-ZiNE and Nikki Walker,a video journalist at the Wall Street Journal.

When: 5 pm, Pacific

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Women's Leadership Society at USC Annenberg

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Mon, March 25 - Sikhi & AI

What: We will explore both the potential benefits and challenges that AI presents within the context of Sikh philosophy and ethics.

Who: Arvinder Singh, technology leader with 15 years experience; Balwinder Kaur, Women in Tech Champion -CTO; Muntek Singh, CTO with 15 years experience; Tarsem Singh, Former Global Director of Software.

When: 6 pm, Pacific

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Khalis Foundation

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Wed, March 27 - Follow the Money: Using HospitalFinances.org and other tools to tell important stories

What: This webinar will equip you with the tools you need to tell the story of the big business of health care. How to use AHCJ’s site and other tools to report stories about hospitals’ financial health.   

Who: Longtime AHCJ member Karl Stark, Director of Content Strategy & Editor in Residence at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ), Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE)

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Wed, March 27 - Revising The Media Literacy Critical Questions

What: The Media Literacy Smartphone is a teaching game, build on a long history of critical reflection of media messages. It has now been improved for practitioners of media literacy in K-12 and post-secondary education.

Who: Yonty Friesem is the Executive Director of Media Education Lab and an Associate Professor of Communication at Columbia College Chicago;  Mark Davis is a digital literacy educator with over twenty years of K-12 public service. He advocates for inclusive practices supporting media education and computational thinking.

When: 12 noon, 7 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Media Education Lab

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Thu, March 28 - AI, misinformation, and other threats in the 2024 elections

What: Topics: Tackling misinformation; The use of artificial intelligence to mislead voters; The effects of conspiracy theories on local elections; Security vulnerabilities and foreign interference; Threats faced by election workers.

Who: Christina A. Cassidy, national voting and elections reporter for AP; Ali Swenson, election misinformation reporter for AP; Christine Fernando, state and local misinformation reporter for AP

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: American Press Institute, Associated Press

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Thu, March 28 - Empowering Journalists with AI and Tech Innovation

What: How you can best use AI for content creation and what pitfalls to avoid. Since González-Cotto is a lawyer, he’ll include some of the legal and ethical aspects of using AI.

Who: Rafelli González-Cotto, Digital Reporter, Lawyer and Professor, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón

When: 4 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The National Association of Hispanic Journalists

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Are you smarter than a pigeon?

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In the 1950s, Skinner began putting the birds in a box and training them to peck on a piece of plastic whenever they wanted food. Then the Harvard psychology researcher rigged the system so that not every peck would yield a tasty treat. It became random — a reward every three pecks, then five pecks, then two pecks. 

The pigeons went crazy and began pecking compulsively for hours on end.

Fast forward six decades. We have become the pigeons pecking at our iPhones, scrolling through news feeds, swiping left/right on Tinder for hours, the uncertainty of what we might find keeping us obsessed by design.

In the modern economy of tablets and apps, our attention has become the most valuable commodity. Tech companies have armies of behavioral researchers whose sole job is to apply principles like Skinner’s variable rewards to grab and hold our focus as often and long as possible.

Market research shows the average user touches their cellphone 2,617 times a day.

William Wan in the Washington Post 

AI definitions: Extractive summarization

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Extractive summarization - Identifying the important sections of a text and then producing a subset of sentences from that original text. On the other hand, abstractive summarization, uses natural language techniques to interpret and understand the important aspects of a text in order to generate a more “human” friendly summary. While abstractive summarization generates entirely new sentences that are sometimes not  in the source material, extractive summarization sticks to the original text. This is particularly helpful when accuracy and maintaining the author's original intent are the priority.

More AI definitions here.

Getting the Most out of Your Memories

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The principle for having something be memorable is to attend to what’s distinctive about it. The more you can attend to what is distinctive and be mindful of it, the more vivid the memory.

We’re constantly taking pictures and then throwing them on social media. But this is the ultimate form of electronic amnesia. You’re cheating your experiencing self because you don’t connect with what’s happening, and you’re cheating your remembering self because you’ve deprived yourself of a great memory. 

So instead of taking pictures of every moment of your vacation, pay attention to what makes a particular moment distinctive. Ask yourself: What is going to be most memorable in each picture I take? How can I compose the picture to focus on the vivid details that will bring me back to this time and place?  That’s when pictures become valuable — when they force you to pay attention to the things that are important to you in that moment.

Neuroscientist Charan Ranganath quoted in Big Think

16 Articles about How to Use AI

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11 Webinars this Week about AI, Journalism, Elections, Poetry & Social Media

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Tue, March 19 - How journalists can navigate news avoidance

What: Concrete strategies to try to reach news avoiders with your journalism.

Who: Benjamin Toff who led the Reuters Trust In News Project and Trusting News Director Joy Mayer. 

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Trusting News

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Tue, March 19 - Using Generative AI to Transform Your eLearning into Personalized Learning

What: Join us in this fun, interactive session, where we'll dive into integrating ChatGPT with Articulate Storyline, putting the power of AI right in the hands of your learner. You could use the same techniques with any other leading authoring software. We will also talk about critical do’s and don’ts while planning to use ChatGPT integration in eLearning modules.  

Who: Garima Gupta, Founder & CEO, Artha Learning Inc.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Training Magazine Network

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Tue, March 19 - How AI Is Transforming Media Activation

What: Discover how to stay ahead in the dynamic world of AI-powered media activation. You’ll find out: How to implement AI-driven audience segmentation to boost engagement and conversion Ways to use predictive analytics and AI to activate hyper-targeted audiences and maintain strong addressability post third-party cookie Strategies to optimize the deployment of hyper-targeted audiences without the need for proxies

Who: Ericka Podesta McCoy, CMO of Resonate

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: AdWeek

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Tue, March 19 - Investigative Journalism and Digital Threats in 2024 Elections

What: In this panel, leading journalists and experts — who will all be covering elections in 2024 — share perspectives on the impact of digital threats in elections in different continents. They will also share tips and tools about how to better expose the individuals and organizations behind disinformation campaigns.

Who: Priyanjana Bengani is the Tow Computational Journalism Fellow at Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism; Malek Khadhraoui is a journalist, trainer, and publication director of Inkyfada, a Tunisian magazine dedicated to investigative and longform journalism.

When: 9 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Global Investigative Journalism Network

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Wed, March 20 - AI + Fact-Checking in an Election Year

What: Participants will complete exercises on how to use them and discover ways to use them to keep their communities informed about the election.

Who: Mike Reilley Senior Lecturer, University of Illinois-Chicago.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free for members, $25 for nonmembers

Sponsor: Online News Association

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Wed, March 20 - Processing the News Through Poetry with the Pulitzer Center  

What: Learn about how thousands of students worldwide have used poetry as a tool for close reading, empathetic connection, and raising their voices through the Fighting Words Poetry Contest. Participants will explore the resources used to craft original poems in response to global news stories and examples of contest-winning student work.  

When: 4 pm, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Pulitzer Center  

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Wed, March 20 - Using Design to Stand Out on Social Media

What: Learn design tactics that will help you stand out from the noise and show your audience why they should care. No matter the size of your team or budget, discover how to maximize your impact without breaking the bank (or your sanity).

Who: Eva Taylor, Director Social Impact, Hootsuite; Ezra Morris, Director of Digital Engagement, CARE; Anell Abreu, Digital Content Manager, CARE; Lauren Freund, Social Media Manager, Canva.

When: 11 am, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Hootsuite

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Wed, March 20 - Stopping Climate Action Mis-Information — How Is the Media Complicit and What Can Journalists Do?

What: In this interactive panel discussion, advocates will talk about what can and should be done to ensure fair, accurate and useful reporting around climate action.

Who: Meg McGuire, Founder, Delaware Currents; Aparna Mukherjee, Society of Environmental Journalists; Lauren Yates, Freelance Journalist; Nicole Miller, MnM Consulting; Anjuli Ramos-Busot, State Director, New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club; Marcus Sibley, National Wildlife Federation.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Society of Environmental Journalists

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Thu, March 21 - The Futurist Summit: The New Age of Tech

What: A dynamic summit featuring groundbreaking pioneers, influential policymakers and leading minds about the technological transformations shaping our future

Who: Stefanie Tompkins Director, DARPA; Pat Gelsinger CEO, Intel; Anna Makanju Vice President of Global Affairs, OpenAI; Hemant Taneja CEO & Managing Director, General Catalyst; Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.); Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.); Brian Rolapp Chief Media & Business Officer, National Football League; Sarah Herrlinger Senior Director, Global Accessibility Policy & Initiatives, Apple and more, including 11 Washington Post reporters.

When: 9 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsors: Mozella & The Washington Post

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Thu, March 21 - What mainstream media can learn from niche news sites

What: Fundamentally, it is crucial for all newsrooms to make sharper choices about what they report on — and how. Niche news sites have no choice in this, but mainstream news can learn a lot by using these differentiation strategies in all stages of the content cycle. Through the lens of successful case studies from FIN News (USA) and Chemistry World (UK), we’ll explore how making precise editorial choices can significantly enhance the relevance and impact of your content. Together we’ll address the question every journalistic organisation should ask themselves: why do you matter to your audience and how do you make a difference for them?

Who: Rutger Verhoeven, co-founder and CMO of smartocto; Matt McCue (FIN News, USA) and Philip Robinson (Chemistry World, UK).

When: 11 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: smartocto

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A Dozen Articles about AI & Health Care

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