OLDaily

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

Reddit sues Anthropic for allegedly not paying for training data
Maxwell Zeff, TechCrunch, 2025/06/16

---

This is an interesting case on a couple of levels. The TLDR is that "Reddit is suing Anthropic for training on its site's data without a proper licensing, joining a litany of publishers with similar claims." But there are some differences here. First, Reddit doesn't actually own the content it is licensing; user content is owned by the users, and Reddit gains a license to it (including the ability to use it for AI). It also explicitly declares that this content is public content. Reddit has, in fact, entered into lisensing agreements with other companies - but I have to ask, does this create a requirement for Anthropic to buy a license from Reddit to access or use public presentations of other people's data? Can a company create a private market out of a public just by paying someone for it?

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

The Critical Thinking Matrix
Peter Ellerton, University of Queensland, 2025/06/16

---

This interesting table dates from 2015 and draws from Peter Facione's 1990 'cognitive skills' (p. 12 or 15) and Thomas Kuhn's 1977 account of epistemic values (as extracted in a 1-page paywalled article by Linda Elder and Richard Paul). And the inclusion of 'self-regulation' as an epistemic value is something I would want to think about a lot more. I think it's a nice effort, though I think there's some cross-categorization in the definition of 'cognitive skills' and misapplication of Kuhn across the set of epistemic values (which were originally intended specifically for theory selection by a community). Via a couple of LinkedIn posts that disappeared while I was writing this, one referencing UQ's Critical Thinking Project, another referencing some resource you can access only by extracting keywords from the comments (yes, as ludicrous as it sounds).

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

Birdsnest
Stephen Downes, Mastodon, 2025/06/16

---

This is the stuff that really matters. We were at Petrie Island today and I discovered a Redwinged Blackbird nest in the reeds by accident. I didn't want to get too close, but I had the big lens with me. You have to look closely (full size image here) but in the sequence of three photos you can see the chicks beg for food, the mother feed them, and them sleeping. Circle of life.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

The Claude 4 System Card is a Wild Read
Charlie Guo, Artificial Ignorance, 2025/06/16

---

The two items I cite here are a couple of weeks old, which in the world of AI amounts to ancient history, but it was important to take the time to get them right. They discuss the 'system promptes' used by the most recent version of Anthropic's AI model called Claude. The first page contains the actual system prompts for Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4. These are instructions the models receive before they are turned over to humans. The second page is commentary on the corresponding 'system card' ("a standardized way to understand what you're working with... architecture details, training data, known limitations, performance metrics") and describes some of the unusual results - for example, the tendency of Claude to preserve itself by extorting the user, or so some a coding problem by deleting the block of code containing the problem. Together they add a couple more brushstrokes to be big picture that is AI in 2025.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

How developing neurons simplify their search for a synaptic mate
Cali McMurray, The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives, 2025/06/16

---

As we know, the physical process of learning consists of the creation of networks of connected neurons (the resulting 'knowledge' is literally the 'connectome' that results). So it should matter a lot to educators how these connections specifically are generated. And no, 'instruction', mostly, has little to do with it. This article drills down into some specific detail on how the whole process even gets started. "Cell surface proteins serve as molecular identification tags to help axons distinguish 'Mr. Wrong' dendrite from 'Mr. Right,' according to the chemoaffinity hypothesis." But topology matters as well;  chemoaffinity underdetermines connectivity. According to a (paywalled) paper referenced here, axons treat the 3D problem as a 2D one. "Axons don't need to delve deep. They only need to survey the surface in order to find their target." They demonstrated the process in a pair of preprints with a minor remapping of surface routes that resulted in gay houseflies. "The original partnership inhibits male-male courtship, but the new partnership promotes it."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

The Era Of The Business Idiot
Edward Zitron, Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At, 2025/06/16

---

Reading this long post is probably way too much work for the people it describes, named here as the 'business idiots'. The fact that I did read an entire 13,000 word post in pursuit of a 100 word commentary is something business idiots don't understand. And that's Ed Zitron's point. I've learned my own version of the lessons Zitron describes here through a 45 year career: that the primary qualification for management is obedience; that loyalty in management is always upwards; and that managers don't care (can't care) about the people who work for them, the actual work they perform, or the customers they serve. Zitron identifies a cause for this trend - the pursuit of shareholder profit above all else - and details the symptoms in lavish detail. The article is written in a tech context, but the application is not limited to tech.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

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.

There are many ways to read OLDaily; pick whatever works best for you:

• Read in your web browser on this web page, updated weekdays
• Receive a daily or weekly email newsletter by subscribing here
• Subscribe to the RSS feed using your favourite feed reader
• Follow @OLDaily@mastodon.social on Mastodon or elsewhere in the fediverse
• Follow @OLDaily on Twitter
• Integrate the open API using the JSON feed