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We Need an Interventionist Mindset | TechPolicy.Press
danah boyd, Tech Policy Press, 2025/04/10

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This doesn't read as a 100% human authored article (especially the references to 'Captain Sully' and 'Canadian geese'). Still, danah boyd's point here is a good one: instead of saying AI developers should 'fix' problems with their systems ("what María and I call techno-legal solutionism") they suggest that, because AI systems are complex and not deterministic in nature, we should talk of 'interventions'. This especially applies to 'human-in-the-loop' scenarios, which might be more problematic than people suspect: "positioning humans in a way where they are to decide when and where to override the AI often results in them landing in a position that Madeleine Elish calls a 'moral crumple zone'."

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Announcing the Agent2Agent Protocol
Google for Developers, 2025/04/10

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This article announces Agent2Agent (A2A), Google's new open protocol supporting interoperable AI solutions. According to Google, "A2A is an open protocol that complements Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP), which provides helpful tools and context to agents... A2A empowers developers to build agents capable of connecting with any other agent built using the protocol and offers users the flexibility to combine agents from various providers." The article lists a set of A2A design principles and describes briefly how it works (as illustrated) and offers a "real world" example in the form of "candidate sourcing" (video). "Read the full specification draft, try out code samples, and see example scenarios on the A2A website". More: Awesome A2A with examples and a list of frameworks, utilities and server implementations.

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Blending AI, OER, and UDL
Lance Eaton, AI + Education = Simplified, 2025/04/10

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"Given that CAST released the UDL 3.0 guidelines last summer," writes Lance Eaton, "we found it a perfect opportunity to bring these three elements together." This article describes how the three compliment each other, offers links to resources (the slides and the handout), and summarizes some lessons learned. "Each of these three ideas can serve as an effective gateway to the other two."

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Being Human in 2035: Experts predict significant change in the ways humans think, feel, act and relate to one another in the Age of AI
Janna Anderson, Lee Rainie, Imagining the Digital Future Center, 2025/04/10

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I only wrote a short contribution to this volume but I think the one-paragraph excerpt from it is a zinger: "Things will be smarter than we are: Instead of devising 'human-in-the-loop' policies to prevent AI from running amok, we will devise 'AI-in-the-loop' policies to help very fallible humans learn, think and create more effectively and more safely." I go on to discuss the 'second Copernican revolution' we are going through as humans contend with the realization that they are not at the centre of the thinking world; rocks can think. The full report is available from Elon University (286 page PDF).

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A 'U.S.-Made iPhone' is Pure Fantasy – Pixel Envy
Nick Heer, Pixel Envy, 2025/04/10

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As we all stare at the spectacle of the richest country in history complaining that 'everyone is taking advantage of them' it's worth pondering why the 'U.S.-made iPhone' is pure fantasy. "I am also baffled when I see Walmart selling a pair of jeans for less than $20. The only way this is possible is at a huge human cost." Not that anyone in the U.S. gov ernment is worried about that cost. "Workers' rights are not what U.S. tariffs are ultimately about. But the exploitation is ours. We, the richest countries in the world, go into developing nations and extract from their people and environment the products we want for the incredibly generous lifestyle we have." China is finally pushing back a bit against this exploitation, so Apple (and others) are just moving to India, and the beat goes on. 

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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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