OLDaily

Welcome to Online Learning Daily, your best source for news and commentary about learning technology, new media, and related topics.

Diverse and Inclusive Representation in OER
BCcampus, 2023/05/26

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Short quick guide excerpted from the Getting Started: OER Publishing at BCcampus by the OER Production Team.  I especially liked the statement on diversity: " The term 'diversity' refers to the variety of experiences and attributes held by people across all walks of life. No one thing or person is 'diverse.' There are no 'diverse individuals.' Diversity must always be evaluated on a collective level." Exactly right.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Watch: Confucian alternative beats giving robots rights
Caitlin Kizielewicz Carnegie Mellon, Futurity, 2023/05/26

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I like this article because it makes clear the ambiguity of ethics with respect to AIs and robots of the future (and this serves to correct people who assume that ethics is 'solved' and simply needs to be 'applied' to these technologies). It challenges the assumption that sentience, ethical status, or personhood ought automatically result in the granting of rights. "Although many believe that respecting robots should lead to granting them rights... Kim suggests that the Confucian alternative of assigning rites—or what he calls role obligations—to robots is more appropriate than giving robots rights. The concept of rights is often adversarial and competitive, and potential conflict between humans and robots is concerning." Short article with included video.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Neuralink: Why is Elon Musk's brain chip firm in the news?
Shiona McCallum, BBC News, 2023/05/26

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According to this article, "Elon Musk's brain chip firm Neuralink has received the US regulatory green light for its first human clinical trial, after earlier controversies." The technology has been tested on animals but there haven't been human trials yet. "It is trying to create a new way to allow computers to communicate directly with the human brain... to tackle complex neurological conditions which have so far proved beyond the capability of medical intervention. These range from paralysis and blindness to depression and schizophrenia." I have nothing against brain chip implants, but the potential for abuse makes me worry a lot about the executive leadership of this particular venture.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Cheers as Brandon School Division rejects call to remove library books on sexuality, gender identity
Cameron MacLean, CBC, 2023/05/26

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I live in Brandon for almost five years and although the community is strongly conservative I always felt welcome there. So I'm glad to see the community push back against what has been a rising tide of intolerance in North America, and commend them all, of all political persuasions, for remembering what it means to live in a free and democratic society.

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Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Models
Guanzhi Wang, et al., arXiv, 2023/05/26

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If you really like Minecraft but don't have the patience to actually play Minecraft, then Voyager is for you. "We introduce Voyager, the first LLM-powered embodied lifelong learning agent in Minecraft that continuously explores the world, acquires diverse skills, and makes novel discoveries without human intervention. Voyager consists of three key components: 1) an automatic curriculum that maximizes exploration, 2) an ever-growing skill library of executable code for storing and retrieving complex behaviors, and 3) a new iterative prompting mechanism that incorporates environment feedback, execution errors, and self-verification for program improvement." 41 page PDF (though the paper itself is only the first 10 pages). Here's the code on GitHub. Here's the website with animations.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

We publish six to eight or so short posts every weekday linking to the best, most interesting and most important pieces of content in the field. Read more about what we cover. We also list papers and articles by Stephen Downes and his presentations from around the world.

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