Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Why has machine learning become such a toxic field, know-it-all field?

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This is an item from Reddit, so on the down side things are a bit over-stated, but on the plus side, there are (as of this writing) 297 comments, which should offer a good range of perspectives (I say 'should' because I did not read 297 comments). The complaints raised here will be familiar to people working with educational technologists: they feel they can be successful even without subject-matter experts, they don't learn the history and the basics of the field, and there's little focus on practical applications, and they overstate what the technology can do. Meanwhile, on the sidelines, the "fairness/ethics crowd... always point out problems, but never (real) solutions." It's easy to dismiss this post (and this is the author's only post on Reddit, so there's that too) - but this is a complex and many-sided discussion and we need to take a breath and think things through carefully. Image: X is all you need, Reddit.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: May 09, 2024 9:11 p.m.

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