The Aim of Genuine Love

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Parents who say to their children, “You should be grateful for all that we have done for you” are invariably parents who are lacking in love to a significant degree. Anyone who genuinely loves knows the pleasure of loving. When we genuinely love we do so because we want to love. We have children because we want to have children, and if we are loving parents, it is because we want to be loving parents. It is true that love involves a change in the self, but this is an extension of the self rather than a sacrifice of the self. As will be discussed again later, genuine love is a self-replenishing activity. Indeed, it is even more; it enlarges rather than diminishes the self; it fills the self rather than depleting it. In a real sense love is as selfish as nonlove.

Here again there is a paradox in that love is both selfish and unselfish at the same time. It is not the selfishness or unselfishness that distinguishes love from nonlove; it is the aim of the action. In the case of genuine love the aim is always spiritual growth. In the case of nonlove the aim is always something else.

M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

18 Recent Articles about Teaching & AI

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17 Articles about the Business of Running an AI Company

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Listening to Children

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Why exert effort to focus totally on the boring prattlings of a six-year-old? First, you willingness to do so is the best possible concrete evidence of your esteem you can give your child. If you give your child the same esteem you would give a great lecturer, then the child will know him or herself to be valued and therefore feel valuable. Second, the more children feel valuable, the more they will begin to say things of value.

They will rise to your expectation of them. Third, the more you listen to your child, the more you will realize that in amoungst the pauses, the stutterings, the seemingly innocent chatter, your child does indeed have valuable things to say. Listen to your child enough and you'll come to realize that he or she is quite an extraordinary individual. And the more extraordinary you realize your child to be, the more you'll will be willing to listen. And the more you will learn.

M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Social Groups rather than Facts Shape our Opinions

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Our attitudes are shaped much more by our social groups than they are by facts on the ground. We are not great reasoners. Most people don't like to think at all, or like to think as little as possible. And by most, I mean roughly 70 percent of the population. Even the rest seem to devote a lot of their resources to justifying beliefs that they want to hold, as opposed to forming credible beliefs based only on fact. 

Think about if you were to utter a fact that contradicted the opinions of the majority of those in your social group. You pay a price for that. 

I live in a very limited universe, and so I have to depend on the beliefs and knowledge of other people. I know what I’ve read; I know what I’ve heard from experts. In that sense, the decisions we make, the attitudes we form, the judgments we make, depend very much on what other people are thinking. 

Steven Sloman quoted in Vox

8 Free Webinars This Week about AI, Journalism, Politics, & Disinformation

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Mon, April 8 - Not the odds, but the stakes – Covering the 2024 Elections

What: How journalists can address unprecedented challenges to their craft during one of the most consequential elections in its history.

Who: Media critic and author Margaret Sullivan, formerly executive editor of The Buffalo News, and Barton Gellman, a three-time Pulitzer-prize winner, author and journalist who is now a senior advisor to the Brennan Center for Justice.

When: 3 pm, Eastern 

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Society of Professional Journalists, DC Chapter 

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Tue, April 9 - Investigating Elections: Threat from AI Audio Deepfakes 

What: Three experts will share tips, tools, and resources to identify, investigate, and verify potential deepfakes.

Who: Silas Jonathan, a Digital Investigation Manager at the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development; Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist with BBC Verify, where he covers fake news, disinformation and manipulation on digital platforms; Olga Yurkova, a journalist and cofounder of StopFake.org, an independent Ukrainian organization that trains an international cohort of fact-checkers in an effort to curb propaganda and misinformation in the media; The moderator is Rowan Philp, GIJN’s senior reporter.

When: 9 am, Eastern 

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Global Investigative Journalism Network

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Tue, April 9 - AI Innovator Collaborative

What: We’ll get into both internal policies that shape your use of AI and public-facing disclosures and explanations for audiences.  

Who: Lynn Walsh and Joy Mayer of Trusting News.

When: 3 pm, Eastern 

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Online News Association 

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Wed, April 10 - Framing the disinformation crisis for journalists

What: Learn strategies for coverage that informs and empowers your community and discuss the ways disinformation has affected the practice of journalism.

Who: Tiffany Hsu, reporter on the technology team covering misinformation and disinformation, New York Times; Shannon Jankowski, program director, journalism and disinformation for PEN America; Jay Van Bavel, director of the Social Identity & Morality Lab and associate professor of psychology and neural science, New York University; Moderator: Beth Francesco, executive director of the National Press Club Journalism Institute.

When: 11:30 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsors: The National Press Club Journalism Institute, the American Psychological Association, and PEN America

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Thu, April 11 - AI in Newsrooms: How It Can Help and How It Will Hurt Journalism

What: The good, the bad and the ugly of Artificial Intelligence.

Who: PCLI treasurer Jeff Bessen; Jay Aldred, co-founder of Lede AI; Nikita Roy, Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists; Zachary Richner, managing partner and founder of Arrandale Ventures. 

When: 7 pm, Eastern 

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Press Club of Long Island

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Thu, April 11 - Environmental journalism: The good, the bad, the future – and why you are essential Webinar Series

What: In this webinar, top Environmental Health Sciences staff will trace the arc of environmental journalism: Trends, coverage gaps, and the future. We will look under the hood at social media approaches and how journalists are working to reach audiences that neither trust nor consume traditional media. We'll talk about how to pitch stories and make science approachable.   

Who: Environmental Health Sciences Executive Director Douglas Fischer.

When: 3 pm, Eastern 

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health

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Thu, April 11 - Navigating The AI Landscape in Journalism: Opportunities, Applications, and Ethical Considerations

What: The session will not only highlight inspiring applications of AI in journalism but also navigate the crucial discussions around responsible AI use, addressing the ethical dimensions and the imperative of maintaining journalistic integrity. Additionally, we will tackle the pressing challenge of AI’s impact on newspaper websites, exploring both the opportunities and threats it presents, ensuring that attendees leave with a well-rounded understanding of AI’s role in shaping the future of news.

Who: Dwayne Desaulniers stands at the forefront of merging journalism with cutting-edge AI, boasting a rich career that reshaped newsrooms from The Associated Press to WebMD. As a co-founder of NewsStand.ai, he champions AI’s role in sustaining local journalism, ensuring newsrooms stay ahead in the digital era.  

When: 1 pm, Central 

Where: Zoom

Cost: $35 

Sponsor: Online Media Campus 

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Thu, April 11 - 5 Emerging Technologies You Need to Know

What: Learn how these 5 technologies will not only shape your career in the future, but also the priorities of upcoming administrations. The possible pain points in implementation, agency success stories, and where they’ve used these technologies for good.

Who: Adam Leonard, Chief Analytics Officer & Director, Information Innovation & Insight, Texas Workforce Commission; Michael Lawrence Evans, Director of Emerging Technologies, Mayor’s Office, City of Boston; Jacqueline Ponti-Lazaruk, Chief Innovation Officer, USDA; William Cahoe, Director of Communications and Outreach for 10x, GSA; Francisco Ramirez, Chief Architect, State and Local Government, Red Hat

When: 2 pm, Eastern 

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: GovLoop

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The Impact of AI on Creativity in 19 Articles

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AI definitions: Opaque AI

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Opaque AI - When an AI algorithm operates as a black box that we can’t understand. This can lead to AI systems that inadvertently perpetuate and amplify biases. On the other hand, AI transparency allows for the examination and understanding of how these biases occur, leading to more ethical and fair AI systems. The level of AI opacity varies depending on the industry. For example, in highly regulated industries, transparency is paramount for legal and regulatory compliance.

More AI definitions here.

Technical Debt & Ethical Debt

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Technical Debt - A software development term referring to the cost of choosing fast solutions now and putting off fixing issues until a future time. The benefit of a rush to market is matched with a hope that bugs will be found later, and repairs made. It can result from limited testing during the development process.

Ethical Debt - The result of not considering societal harms and unintended consequences. This can happen in the fast-moving production of AI tools. The people who incur it are rarely the people who ultimately pay for it.

More AI definitions here.

18 Articles about How AI is Affecting Jobs

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Want to Know if AI Will Take Your Job? I Tried Using It to Replace Myself - WSJ

AI-powered robotics will fuel jobs disruptions in ways we don’t realize - Semafor

The human side of generative AI: Creating a path to productivity - McKinsey

An Analysis of 5 Million Job Postings Showed These Are the 3 Jobs Being Replaced by AI the Fastest – Inc.

Gen AI is here to stay — here are 5 skills to help you stay relevant in the changing job market – CNBC

Swedish fintech Klarna says its AI assistant does the work of 700 people—after it laid off 700 people – Fast Company

Oops! Replacing Workers With AI Is Actually More Expensive, MIT Finds – Futurism

AI Is Starting to Threaten White-Collar Jobs - Wall Street Journal

The AI machines are not coming for your job – MarketWatch

 AI Talent Is in Demand as Other Tech Job Listings Decline - Wall Street Journal 

AI's job threat extends to CEOs who move too slowly in adapting to it – Axios 

AI hiring tools may be filtering out the best job applicants - BBC

10% of US workers are in jobs most exposed to artificial intelligence, White House says - CNN

Will A.I. Take All Our Jobs? This Economist Suggests Maybe Not. – New York Times

AI could help ending the dominance of the credentialed classes – Washington Post

9 AI jobs you can get without being an expert coder – Business Insider

Amid Fears of AI Job Losses, This MIT Professor Thinks It Can Fix the Labor Market – Inc. 

AI Can't Do All Our Jobs for Us. But We Can Make It a 'Superhero Sidekick' - CNBC

Slicing Projects

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Rather than looking at tasks, projects or decisions as items that must be completed, slice them into the smallest possible units of progress, then knock them out one at a time. This strategy relieves the pressure of thinking we need a perfect plan before we begin something — after all, if your first step is “open a new Google Doc for this week’s newsletter” and not “pick a perfect topic, write a perfect lede and have a perfect organization,” you either have achieved that micro-goal or you haven’t. There’s no gray area.

Tim Herrera writing in the New York Times 

23 Amazing Things AI Can Do Now

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Artificial intelligence might revolutionise coaching based on football research – Cosmos

OpenAI reveals artificial intelligence tool to re-create human voices - Axios 

NASA is releasing its first open-source geospatial artificial intelligence foundation model for Earth observation data - EarthData 

Advances in AI and satellite imagery allowed researchers to create the clearest picture yet of human activity at sea – The Verge 

AI Is Telling Bedtime Stories to Your Kids Now - Wired

Why AI will help IT workers get more sleep - Semafor

New study finds ChatGPT gives better advice than professional columnists – PsyPost

LinkedIn Tests New AI-Based Learning Elements In-Stream – Social Media Today

AI platform demonstrates ability to autonomously plan and execute a chemistry experiment after taking input prompts from researchers – Engineering   

Can AI Predict What Shoppers Will Buy? – Business of Fashion

AI is speeding up scientific discoveries and helping to spot new ideas - Axios

Google Chrome will summarize entire articles for you with built-in generative AI - The Verge

AI is helping cut the carbon footprint of online shopping returns - Semafor

Elvis Evolution: Presley to be brought to life using AI for new immersive show - BBC

How an AI robot smashed human world record in Labyrinth, a classic marble maze game – Fox News  

George Carlin has a new AI-generated comedy special – USA Today 

This AI game controller can predict which button you'll press next - BGR

This AI learnt language by seeing the world through a baby’s eyes – Nature   

AI program “can train neural networks using just a handful of satellite and drone images - Phys.org 

How AI Can Find the Perfect Movies, TV Shows and Books for You – Wall Street Journal  

Ex Zillow exec launches AI-powered home search platform - Axios

A Celebrity Dies, and New Biographies Pop Up Overnight. The Author? A.I. – New York Times

The AI art generator Midjourney is the favored tool in architecture - Bloomberg

Labels can be People Shortcuts

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Labels are shortcuts. They allow us to easily dismiss the people we associate them with. They give us an excuse not to invest in others because we think we already know them. We avoid treating them as people.

If you ask a blind person what he would like more than anything else in the world (aside from regaining his sight) you’ll invariably get an answer like this: “I want people to accept me as a person in spite of my handicap. I don’t want to be defined as a blind person. I want to be known first as a person — a person who happens to blind. 

What the blind person is asking sounds like something from the Sermon on the Mount”: “Don’t label, and then you won’t be labeled.”  

Labels not only can be turned outward, but they can also be turned inward. Labeling ourselves can propel the user down a pessimistic spiral. “I can’t tell good jokes at parties” soon becomes “I’m no fun at parties” and eventually “People don’t want me around.”  

People who overeat soon find themselves saying, “I’m the kind of person who overeats.” Or it might be, “I’m the kind of person who has to keep smoking.” The shift toward letting a label become our identify is a subtle but damning shift. The label becomes a shortcut way to deny the possibility of change.

Stephen Goforth

5 Free Webinars this week about Journalism, AI, Teaching & Branding

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Mon, April 1 – Covering the 2024 Election

Who: Media critic and author Margaret Sullivan, formerly executive editor of The Buffalo News, and Barton Gellman, a three-time Pulitzer-prize winner, author and journalist who is now a senior advisor to the Brennan Center for Justice.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Society of Professional Journalists, Wash., DC chapter

More Info

 

Tue, April 2 - Meet The Generative AI Moment With Authentic Learning

What: This one-hour workshop will both provide a high-level explanation of how these tools work, along with insights from colleagues across disciplines at UChicago about how they’ve been approaching this change in the educational landscape. Attendees will receive context to make an informed decision about how to approach these tools and address the topic with their students. By providing examples of how they might design assignments and communicate their expectations in this new context, we hope to provide attendees with everything they need to feel confident that learning remains authentic even in a time that computer-generated text may approach the quality of human intellectual work.

Who: University of Chicago faculty

When: 1 pm, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: University of Chicago

More Info

 

Tue, April 2 - Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in K-12 Schools

What: What are the best practices in crafting AI policies—should schools ban the technology, wholly embrace it, or something in between? What are the questions district and state leaders should ask themselves as they chart their course on AI? And where does AI literacy and professional development for teachers fit in this picture? This webinar will explore those questions, offering practical tips from educators and experts on how to approach this rapidly evolving technology while remaining mindful of core principles such as student privacy and academic honesty.

Who: Pati Ruiz is a Senior Director of Edtech and Emerging Technologies at Digital Promise where she leads the Edtech and Emerging Technologies team; Dr. Kip Glazer is a proud Principal of Mountain View High School in Mountain View California, home of Google and in the heart of Silicon Valley; Vera Cubero, an experienced educator with a wide range of experience in K12 education at the school, district, and state levels; Jerry Almendarez’ career in education spans over 30 years and includes experience as a classroom teacher, assistant principal, and principal.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Education Week

More Info

 

Tue, April 2 - Solutions Journalism 101 Webinar

What: This webinar will explore the ins and outs of solutions journalism, talk about why it’s important, explain key steps in reporting a solutions story, and share tips and resources for journalists interested in investigating how people are responding to social problems. We will also explore additional resources we have on hand for your reporting, including the Solutions Story Tracker, a database of more than 15,000 stories tagged by beat, publication, author, location, and more, a virtual heat map of what’s working around the world.

When: 6 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Solutions Journalism Network

More Info

 

Wed, April 3 - Measuring Brand: Navigating Video's New Terrain

What: How to navigate through the maze of brand measurement in this new environment, providing you with actionable insights to optimize your marketing strategies and drive tangible results. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting out, this webinar is your gateway to mastering brand measurement in the ever-evolving video landscape.

Who: Tinuiti’s Client Strategy experts: Harry Browne, VP, Client Strategy & Analytics; Hanah Choi, Vice President, Client Strategy & Analytics.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Tinuiti & Media Post

More Info

37 Articles about Data Science & AI from March

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The current limitations of ML and AI systems suitable for use in adversarial environments 

11 Articles about the Ethics of AI

Space Force: needs to “improve how it harnesses AI & ML tools” 

The European Space Agency plans to build a ChatGPT-style digital assistant  

The role of transformers in how chain-of-thought reasoning helps neural networks compute

AI teaching AI 

A record number of objects went into space last year

The adoption of new AI capabilities is making the benefits of geospatial intell more accessible

AI definitions: Training Data   

TimeGPT a generative pre-trained model specifically designed for predicting time-series data

AI definitions: Extractive summarization

Meet the 8 Google employees credited with inventing modern AI

SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites  

Google DeepMind has developed an AI model that outperforms techniques for quantum circuits

Here are five ways to use LLMs on your laptop

Shrinking the distance between acquisition of data to actionable insights from multiple geospatial modalities

Build an AI application with Python in 10 easy steps 

AI Terms: Transformers  

A mathematical formula can explain how neural networks detect relevant patterns

12 Recent Articles about AI’s future

NASA's first open-source geospatial artificial intelligence foundation model for Earth observation data

Generative AI Landscape: Trends of 2024 and Beyond

Understanding the similarities and differences between data science and applied statistics

AI Terms: Abstractive summarization

How to Succeed With Predictive AI: An MIT webinar

A breakthrough in storing quantum data without the need for cryogenic cooling

How Large X Models (LXMs) can help generative AI complete new tasks 

The role of Large Language Models in enhancing the process of extractive summarization

The Role of Satellite Technology in Protecting Critical Infrastructure

Google Cloud adds vector support to all its database offerings

Google just entered the race of foundation models for time-series forecasting

How To Use A Vector Database

“Some of the ways we’re applying AI to the world of design systems”

“Generative AI can improve -- not replace -- predictive analytics”

The Dept of Defense is reportedly working with startup Scale AI to test generative AI models for military use

NGA launches National GEOINT Operations Center

The White House wants developers to abandon C and C++ over memory management security concerns

Regret is overrated (a quote from Daniel Kahneman who passed away yesterday at the age of 90)

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Regret is an emotion, and it is also a punishment that we administer to ourselves. The fear of regret is a factor in many of the decisions that people make (‘Don’t do this, you will regret it’ is a common warning), and the actual experience of regret is familiar. The emotional state has been well described by two Dutch psychologists, who noted that regret is “accompanied by feelings that one should have known better, by a sinking feeling, by thoughts about the mistake one has made and the opportunities lost, by a tendency to kick oneself and to correct one’s mistake, and by wanting to undo the event and to get a second chance.” Intense regret is what you experience when you can most easily imagine yourself doing something other than what you did.

Decision makers know that they are prone to regret, and the anticipation of that painful emotion plays a part in many decisions.

We spend much of our day anticipating, and trying to avoid, the emotional pains we inflict on ourselves. Susceptibility regret, like susceptibility to fainting spells, is a fact of life to which one must adjust.

You can take precautions that will inoculate you against regret. Perhaps the most useful is to be explicit about the anticipation of regret. If you can remember when things go badly that you considered the possibility of regret carefully before deciding, you are likely to experience less of it. You should also know that regret and hindsight bias will come together, so anything you can do to preclude hindsight is likely to be helpful. You should not put too much weight on regret; even if you have some, it will hurt less than you now think.

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

11 Articles about the Ethics of AI

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