AI Definitions: Big Data

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Big Data - Data that’s too big to fit on a single server. Typically, it is unstructured and fast-moving. In contrast, small datafits on a single server, is already in structured form (rows and columns), and changes relatively infrequently. If you are working in Excel, you are doing small data. Two NASA researchers (Michael Cox and David Ellsworth) first wrote in a 1997 paper that when there’s too much information to fit into memory or local hard disks, “We call this the problem of big data.” Many companies wind up with big data, not because they need it, they just haven’t bothered to delete it. Thus, big data is sometimes defined as “when the cost of keeping data around is less than the cost of figuring out what to throw away.”    

Big Data looks to collect and manage large amounts of varied data to serve large-scale web applications and vast sensor networks. Meanwhile, data science looks to create models that capture the underlying patterns of complex systems and codify those models into working applications. Although big data and data science both offer the potential to produce value from data, the fundamental difference between them can be summarized in one statement: collecting does not mean discovering. Big data collects. Data science discovers.  

More AI definitions here.

14 Recent Articles about How AI is Impacting Jobs

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Living in the Past

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Every day I am discovering that people are depressed and defeated because of their past failures and mistakes. They allow their past failures to dominate their present thinking. Because of some past failure, they have convinced themselves that they are no good and they are incapable of doing anything worthwhile. Not only do they doubt their abilities to accomplish anything, but they also down their worth as human beings. Anyone who lives in the past, brooding over past mistakes, will have a difficult time living in the present. If you want to be unhappy, then constantly rethink your past failures. If you want to live victoriously, leave your past failures and disappointments in the past where they belong.

Larry Kennedy, Down with Anxiety!

10 Webinars in the next week about journalism, the election, AI, & more

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Fri, June 21 - Election 2024: Crafting sharp responsible headlines for your political stories

What: Participants will learn how to: Rethink the basics: What is the point of a headline? Balance SEO needs for story promotion without using misleading language. Be inspired with ideas for word choices that balance engagement and responsibility. Practice writing and rewriting headlines.

Who: Aubrey Nagle, Resolve Philly’s director of practice change

When: 11:30 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The National Press Club’s Journalism Institute

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Tue, June 25 - The New Age of AI

What: The use cases of AI, the path to widespread adoption and the continuing questions about trust and safety.

Who: Bret Taylor, Sierra co-founder and OpenAI chair

When: 12 noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Washington Post

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Tue, June 25 - Legal rights & resources: Covering the 2024 election

What: This session will discuss journalists’ newsgathering rights when covering elections; issues to consider when reporting at conventions, polling places, or demonstrations; and the range of free resources available.

Who: Lucy Westcott, CPJ, Emergencies Director; Jennifer Nelson, Senior Staff Attorney, RCFP

When: 12 noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Committee to Protect Journalists, International Women’s Media Foundation, PEN America

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Tue, June 25 - Legal training for journalists covering the Democratic National Convention

What: Legal training for journalists covering the 2024 Democratic National Convention events taking place in Chicago, newsgathering rights, safely reporting on protests, ways to avoid arrest and what to do if arrested, local bail procedures, potential security restrictions, and more. Journalists will come away with practical tips and resources.

Who: Mickey Osterreicher General Counsel for the National Press Photographers Association; Jen Nelson Senior Staff Attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the National Press Photographers Association

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Wed, June 26 - The Power of AI in Storytelling: A Discussion with Media Copilot

What: Why publishers should embrace AI tools for content creation. The future of AI-assisted storytelling. Learn how Nota’s WP-Plugin leverages AI to turn your stories into attention-grabbing visuals.

Who: Pete Pachal, Founder of The Media Copilot, “Where AI Meets Media”

When: 1 pm, Central  

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Wisconsin Newspaper Association

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Wed, June 26 - Webinar on Trusted Journalism in the Age of Generative AI

What: Prof. Dr. Alexandra Borchardt and Nic Newman from the Reuters Institute.

When: How can news organizations leverage AI to enhance their reporting while maintaining trust and credibility? What are the implications of AI-generated content on the public’s perception of news? 

Who: 7 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: European Broadcasting Union

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Wed, June 26 - Mastering the Op-Ed

What: Hear directly from top editorial staff about what makes an op-ed stand out, the common pitfalls to avoid, and the editorial decision-making process

Who: Kavita Kumar, Star Tribune; Gayle G.G. Golden, senior lecturer and Charnley Professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota; David Banks, Star Tribune; Marilyn Moyer is an industry veteran known for exceptional writing, editing, and coaching.

When: 12 noon, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: $20 for nonmembers

Sponsor: Minnesota Health Strategy and Communications Organization

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Thu, June 27 - Legal training for journalists covering the Republican National Convention

What: Legal training for journalists covering the 2024 Republican National Convention events taking place in Milwaukee. newsgathering rights, safely reporting on protests, ways to avoid arrest and what to do if arrested, local bail procedures, potential security restrictions, and more. Journalists will come away with practical tips and resources.

Who: Mickey Osterreicher General Counsel for the National Press Photographers Association; Jen Nelson Senior Staff Attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the National Press Photographers Association

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Thu, June 27 - Election Fact-Checking Tools and Best Practices

What: Using tools like Google Fact-Check Explorer to track fact-checked images and stories and Google Scholar to background candidate and claims. Breaking down doctored videos with WatchFramebyFrame and Deepware.

Who: Mike Reilley, lecturer in data and digital journalism at the University of Illinois Chicago for the past eight years.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: RTDNA/Google News

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Thu, June 27 - Learn How to Use Google Analytics 4

What: How to use GA4 to its fullest potential.

Who: Sophie Ho, Director of Product and Insights, News Revenue Hub;  Abbey Gingras, Director of Consulting Services, News Revenue Hub.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: News Revenue Hub

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21 Recent Articles about Journalism & AI: Uses, Ethics, & Dangers

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Yahoo News debuted a fresh A.I.-powered news app – Wired

Ten big questions on AI and the news – Columbia Journalism Review  

It Looked Like a Reliable News Site. It Was an A.I. Chop Shop. – New York Times

NYT issues guidance on its A.I. principles – InPublishing

AI companies freeze out partisan media – Semafor

AI newsroom guidelines look very similar, says a researcher who studied them. He thinks this is bad news - Reuters Institute  

WSJ editor Emma Tucker on how publishers can protect themselves from AI challenge – Press Gazettte

For the first time, two Pulitzer winners disclosed using AI in their reporting – Harvard’s Nieman Lab

AI for Data Journalism: demonstrating what we can do with this stuff right now – Simon Willison

The media bosses fighting back against AI — and the ones cutting deals – Washington Post

A national network of local news sites is publishing AI-written articles under fake bylines. Experts are raising alarm - CNN

What does the public in six countries think of generative AI in news? | Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism - Reuters Institute  

USA Today is adding AI-generated summaries to the top of its articles - The Verge  

Google’s and Microsoft’s AI Chatbots Refuse to Say Who Won the 2020 US Election – Wired

Julia Angwin on trust in journalism and the future of AI and the news – Journalist’s Resources

AI’s coming inverted pyramid moment for journalism – Poynter

Does AI Have a Place in Journalism? 6 Ways It Helps Us Craft Our Original Work – PC Magazine

Why TikTok star Sophia Smith Galer created an AI tool to help journalists make viral videos – Journalism.co  

Newsrooms are experimenting with generative AI, warts and all – The Conversation

Media Companies Are Making a Huge Mistake With AI – The Atlantic

‘Devastating’ potential impact of Google AI Overviews on publisher visibility revealed - Press Gazette

The Secret Power

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You may think that your rehearsal of a job interview was flawless, but your opinion isn't what counts. Or you may believe you played that bar of the Brahms violin concerto perfectly, but can you really trust your own judgment? In many important situations, a teacher, coach, or mentor is vital for providing crucial feedback.

Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration. That is what makes it "deliberate," as distinct from the mindless playing of scales or hitting of tennis balls that most people engage in. Continually seeking exactly those elements of performance that are unsatisfactory and then trying one's hardest to make them better places enormous strains on anyone's mental abilities.

The work is so great that it seems no one can sustain it for very long.

Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and that's exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands. Instead of doing what we're good at, we insistently seek out what we're not good at.

Then we identify the painful, difficult activities that will make us better and do those things over and over. After each repetition, we force ourselves to see - or get others to tell us - exactly what still isn't right so we can repeat the most painful and difficult parts of what we've just done. We continue that process until we're mentally exhausted.

If it seems a bit depressing that the most important thing you can do to improve performance is no fun, take consolation in this fact: It must be so. If the activities that lead to greatness were easy and fun, then everyone would do them and no one could distinguish the best from the rest.

The reality that deliberate practice is hard can even be seen as good news. It means that most people won't do it. So your willingness to do it will distinguish you all the more.

Geoff Colvin, Why Talent is Overrated

15 Articles about AI & Academic Scholarship

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AI Definitions: Synthetic Data

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Synthetic Data – Instead of giving real data to LLMs for training (some experts say we are running out of original human data) there’s an idea that LLMs can be told generate data, synthetic data, on which it can be trained. If synthetic data can be made to work, it could negate the problem of using copyrighted material for training.  Sceptics say this will lead to a degradation of the data, weakening the performance of the model.

More AI definitions here.

21 Articles about AI & Photography

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Photographer Disqualified From AI Image Contest After Winning With Real Photo - PetaPixel  

ChatGPT Vision lets you submit images in your prompts: 7 wild ways people are using it - Mashable

AI comes for YouTube’s thumbnail industry -Rest of World

Google unveiled a watermark that will permanently, though invisibly, mark an image to show that it has been produced by A.I. - Axios

The best AI image generators to create AI art – Fast Company 

A Photographer Who Found Instagram Fame for His Striking Portraits Has Confessed His Images Were Actually A.I.-Generated - ArtNet

‘Art’ificial Intelligence: AI Can Create Religious Images in Seconds. But Is It Really Sacred Art? – Denver Catholic

We tried AI headshot generators to see if you should use them – Washington Post

No, the Jesus ‘washed feet’ Super Bowl ad photos weren’t AI – Poynter

How journals are fighting back against a wave of questionable images – Nature  

I tried Microsoft Copilot's new AI image-generating feature, and it solves a real problem – Zdnet

I Used AI Photos on My Dating Profile and...No One Even Noticed?? – Cosmo

No Photoshop skills? No prob. Use AI to edit your photos – Komando

Meta will start labeling AI-generated images on Instagram and Facebook – NPR  

Publishers are deploying AI-based tools to detect suspicious images, but generative AI threatens their efforts – Nature

In novel case, U.S. charges man with making child sex abuse images with AI - – Washington Post

Google's AI Watermarks Will Identify Deepfakes – Dark Reading

Is It Real or Is It AI? For Photographers, It’s Nebulous - Bloomberg

The best AI photo editing software – Creative Bloq

Instagram is now labeling real photos as “made with AI” – DIY Photography

AI image generators tend to exaggerate stereotypes – Science News Explores

AI Tools Are Secretly Training on Real Images of Children – Wired

Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories

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According to new research, it isn't ignorance that makes people most likely to buy into conspiratorial thinking, or social isolation or mental illness. It's a far more prevalent and pesky personality quirk: overconfidence. The more you think you're right all the time, a new study suggests, the more likely you are to buy conspiracy theories, regardless of the evidence. -Adam Rodgers, writing in Business Insider

Dependency in Marriage

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Dependency may appear to be love because it is a force that causes people to fiercely attach themselves to one another. But in actuality it is not love; it is a form of antilove. It has its genesis in a parental failure to love and it perpetuates the failure. It seeks to receive rather than to give. It nourished infantilism rather than growth. It works to trap and constrict rather than to liberate.

For passive dependent people the loss of the other is such a frightening prospect that they cannot face preparing for it or tolerating a process that would diminish the dependency or increase the freedom of the other. Consequently it is one of the behavioral hallmarks of passive dependent people in marriage that their role differentiations is rigid, and they seek to increase rather than diminish mutual dependency so as to make marriage more rather than less of a trap. By so doing, in the name of what they call love but what is really dependency, they diminish their own and each other’s freedom and stature.

M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

18 recent articles about students using AI

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How two professors harnessed generative AI to teach students to be better writers – Fast Company

AI isn't a daily habit yet for teens, young adults - Axios

University Suspends Students for AI Tool It Gave Them $10,000 Prize to Make – 404 Media

College-bound students concerned about AI skills – Inside Higher Ed

New report shows widespread usage of AI by high school seniors – The National Desk

AI Detection Is a Business. But Should It Be Faculty Business? – Chronicle of Higher Ed  

New Data Reveal How Many Students Are Using AI to Cheat – Ed Week

The Risky Words That Might Make School Admissions Suspect AI Wrote Your Essay – Slash Gear

College student put on academic probation for using Grammarly: ‘AI violation’ – New York Post

Facial Recognition Heads to Class. Will Students Benefit? - Inside Higher Ed

66% of leaders wouldn't hire someone without AI skills, report finds – ZDnet

Humans plus AI detectors can catch AI-generated academic writing – University World News

Teen and Young Adult Perspectives on Generative AI: Patterns of Use, Excitements, and Concerns – Common Sense Media

AI and the Death of Student Writing – Chronicle of Higher Ed

How two professors harnessed generative AI to teach students to be better writers – Fast Company

A.I. Program Aims to Break Barriers for Female Students – New York Times

AI is getting very popular among students and teachers, very quickly – CNBC

Six New LinkedIn Features College Students should care about - Her Campus

Boredom and Cowardice

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Teenagers and their younger siblings grow bored quickly. It's their job to figure out how not to be bored.

Life is filled with dull meetings and duller people and many empty moments. Either you hate a large part of your duties in life or you figure out ways to make that time interesting. Boredom is a wake-up call for us to get involved in process of life. 

Scott Peck wrote in The Road Less Traveled, "Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs." Embracing what we are handed and turning it into something worthwhile is a lifelong struggle.  

It isn't the parents' job to keep children entertained. The kids' job is to take charge of their own situation and figure out what captivates them. Parents just need to provide opportunities and a sense of direction to help kids discover what works.

If we are not in the hunt for the compelling, we will certainly be miserable people. Many escape attempts from the dullness of life that can temporarily distract us. It takes something meaningful and awe-filling to engage us over the long run.

Stephen Goforth

14 Surprising Things AI Can Do Now

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Unfocusing increases Creativity

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“By taking that fifteen-minute period for mindlessness or daydreaming, your attention has been broadened and your mind is now able to make more creative connections between ideas. This cannot happen when you stay overly focused on a problem,” explains (Scott Barry Kaufman, scientific director of the Imagination Institute at the University of Pennsylvania).

Walking, in particular, appears to boost creativity. In a study appropriately titled “Give Your Ideas Some Legs,” researchers found that, both during the walks and right afterward, people scored higher on several different creativity tests. 

You can also unfocus by broadening your experiential and intellectual horizons. According to Kaufman, anything that violates expectations of how the world works can boost creativity. For example, a semester spent studying abroad boosts students’ creativity. Why? New experiences that disrupt our usual way of life and show us a different perspective make us more mentally flexible or creative.

Stanford psychologist Emma Seppälä writing in the Washington Post

Critical thinking is up to you

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Critical thinking means being able to evaluate evidence, to tell fact from opinion, to see holes in an argument, to tell whether cause and effect has been established and to spot illogic. “Most research shows you can teach these skills,” notes cognitive psychologist D Alan Bensley of Frostburg State University, Maryland. “But critical-thinking skills are different from critical-thinking dispositions, or a willingness to deploy those skills.” 

In other words, critical-thinking skills are necessary for engaging in critical thinking, but they are not sufficient. You also have to want to think critically. If you have good critical-thinking skills but for some reason are not motivated to deploy them, you will reach conclusions and make decisions no more rationally than someone without those skills.

Sharon Begley, Critical Thinking: Part Skill, Part Mindset and Totally up to You  

10 Webinars This Week about AI, Journalism, Media & More

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Tue, June 11 - Using AI Tools like ChatGPT to Help You Launch and Grow Your Business

What: Dive into the Entrepreneurs Toolkit, a treasure trove of prompts tailored to guide you through key stages of business development. From assessing opportunities and establishing your entity to financial planning, marketing strategies, and human resources management, you will learn how to harness AI tools effectively at every step of your entrepreneurial journey.

Who: Daniel Street, Asst. Professor of Accounting & Financial Management, Bucknell University

When: 12 noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Pennsylvania Small Business Development Centers

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Tue, June 11 - The Future of Measurement: Use AI to Elevate Marketing ROI

What: How to best equip your brand for efficient marketing ROI measurement and prioritization of marketing activities. The optimal data-driven techniques to predict the performance and impact of media activities. Strategies to transform MMM results into actionable recommendations for optimizing marketing spending and maximizing ROI.

Who: Igor Skokan, marketing science director at Meta, and Henrik Busch, CEO of Kantar Global Analytics.

When: 12 noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Kantar

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Tue, June 11 - How to Protect Yourself Online

What: This lesson will focus on online risks and how they can be mitigated.

Who: Stephanie Sugars U.S. Press Freedom Tracker

When: 11 am, Central

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: New England First Amendment Coalition

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Tue, June 11 - Introduction to the All-New Adobe Captivate – A Beginner’s Guide

What: An interactive session designed specifically for beginners where we'll delve into the fundamental features and functionalities of the all-new Adobe Captivate, which is used for creating eLearning content such as software demonstrations.

Who: Sharath Ramaswamy Senior eLearning Evangelist, Adobe

When: 12 noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Adobe

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Tue, June 11 - AI Innovator Collaborative: Evaluating AI Tools

What: How to evaluate tools for your newsroom. We’ll get into how to evaluate the landscape of vendors, ethical and privacy considerations to take into account, assessing potential solutions within current systems and conversations to have with potential vendors. Come prepared to share how your newsroom is thinking about vetting potential AI tools and vendors — we are going to create a collaborative list of considerations and questions to address.

Who: ONA’s Head of Strategic Partnerships, Hanaa Rifaey

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free to ONA members

Sponsor: Online News Association

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Wed, June 12 - Leveraging Generative AI to Drive Nonprofit Innovation

What: Learn how to utilize Generative AI to streamline operations and elevate member engagement.

When: 1 pm

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: TechSoup

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Wed, June 12 - Smart Ways to Use GenAI to Assist the Newsroom

What: Learn about an internal chatbot that makes it easy for journalists to search the archives, as well as highlighting workflow-friendly tools that help journalists. Also, how GenAI can be used to help this process in the future along with specific examples of how The Times is using GenAI to help its newsroom move faster and get more done.

Who: Ole Reissman, director of AI at Der Spiegel, and Luke Sikkema, Head of Editorial Operations at The Times UK.

When: 10 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: International News Media Assoc,.

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Wed, June 12 - Supporting and engaging students in an AI-powered, post-pandemic world

What: We explore the profound changes and emerging trends within the academic landscape post-pandemic, focusing on how these shifts have redefined learning and research practices.  

Who: Stephen Kemsley Senior Manager, User Experience Design Clarivate; Image of Cheryl Simpson Cheryl Simpson Senior User Experience Designer Clarivate; Sarah Brooks Senior User Experience Designer Clarivate; Mark Ayling (Moderator) Senior Manager, Product Marketing ProQuest, Part of Clarivate

When: 11 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: ProQuest, Part of Clarivate

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Thu, June 13 - The Futurist: The Age of AI

What: Influential policymakers and technology pioneers explore the impact of artificial intelligence on the way we work, live and interact with the world around us.

Who: Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and Inflection AI; Gen. Mark A. Milley (U.S. Army, Ret.) and former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; Maria Ressa, co-founder and CEO at Rappler and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; Kai-Fu Lee, chair of Sinovation Ventures and CEO of 01.AI, and many more. Presenting Sponsors:

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: IBM and Nasdaq

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Thu, June 13 - 4 Key Things Executives Need to Know About AI

What: This session demystifies AI by sharing not only how to understand AI, but how to strategically implement it.

Who: Shaun Dippnall Chief Delivery Officer, Sand Technologies

When: 12 noon, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: SAND Technologies

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You can’t opt Out of Life

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Imagine that three people see a twenty-dollar bill on the front seat of an unlocked car. Each person walks past and leave the cash there. Why? The first person wanted to take the money but passed up the opportunity for fear of punishment if caught in the act. The second rejected the temptation out of a conviction that God makes certain rules that people are to follow, and one of those rules is that we shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to us. The third refrained from taking the money because of empathy—awareness of how frustrated and angry she herself would be if some of her money were stolen.

The action is the same for each individual—no one took the money. But people do things for reasons and the reasons behind the same action in the case above vary significantly. The bumper-sticker-sized version of the first person’s ethics is “Whatever you do, don’t get caught,” while that of the second person is “Thou shall not steal.” The final persona builds her morality around “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” These different reasons grow out of differences in theories about what constitutes right behavior.

Though none of the three people may have been immediately conscious of these theories at work, the theories were there, and they guided each person’s behavior.

Also consider the motives or the reasons behind the action.

Why they did what they did—the theoretical basis of their actions—is significant.

The reality is we must make decisions about the ethical issues confronting us, and we must have a theoretical foundations on which to build and evaluate these decisions.

In other words, the issue is not whether we have a theory, but whether we are conscious of the theory we do have and believe it is the best available guide for our life. We do not choose to be ethicists; we cannot opt out of that. The real question is whether we are going to be good ethicists.

Steve Wilkens, Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics