"The pedagogical value of a writing assignment doesn’t lie in the tangible product of the work — the paper that gets handed in at the assignment’s end. It lies in the work itself: the critical reading of source materials, the synthesis of evidence and ideas, the formulation of a thesis and an argument, and the expression of thought in a coherent piece of writing. The paper is a proxy that the instructor uses to evaluate the success of the work the student has done — the work of learning. Once graded and returned to the student, the paper can be thrown away."

by Nicholas Carr: https://www.newcartographies.com/p/the-myth-of-automated-learning via @riotnrrd

"The EU is developing a Code of Practice to govern general purpose AI, as part of the implementation of the AI Act. But Big Tech has heavily influenced the process to successfully weaken the Code."

"From the second to the third draft of the Code, obligations changed to encouragements. Prohibitions became suggestions. Best efforts, reasonable efforts."

@corporateeurope: https://corporateeurope.org/en/2025/04/coded-privileged-access

"Professional conflicting interest - The AI office relied on a consortium of external consultants to help draft the Code of Practice. However, the investigation shows that the consultancies involved have commercial ties to the #BigTech companies. For instance, the main contractor – French consultancy Wavestone – has a contract to roll out Microsoft’s generative AI tool 365 Copilot in French businesses."

https://corporateeurope.org/en/2025/04/eu-under-heavy-big-tech-pressure-weaken-rules-advanced-ai @ai @eu

"When ChatGPT summarises, it actually does nothing of the kind."

"If I have 35 sentences of circumstance leading up to a single sentence of conclusion, the LLM mechanism will — simply because of how the attention mechanism works with the volume of those 35 — find the ’35’ less relevant sentences more important than the single key one. So, in a case like that it will actively suppress the key sentence."

by Gerben Wierda @gctwnl: https://ea.rna.nl/2024/05/27/when-chatgpt-summarises-it-actually-does-nothing-of-the-kind/

"The reason you begin tracking your data is that you have
some uncertainty about yourself that you believe the data
can illuminate. It’s about introspection, reflection, seeing
patterns, and arriving at realizations about who you are
and how you might change."
—Eric Boyd, self-tracker

an article by Natasha D. Schüll, 2019, "The Data-Based Self:
Self-Quantification and the Data-Driven (Good) Life" https://www.natashadowschull.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/SocialResearch-2019.pdf

The European Commission released its "AI Continent Action Plan" last week. This high-level communication lays down the various initiatives the European Commission is pursuing to support Europe's AI ambitions and AI uptake: https://iapp.org/news/a/a-view-from-brussels-what-is-and-isn-t-in-the-eu-s-ai-continent-action-plan

'The "growth mindset" is Microsoft's cult — a vaguely-defined, scientifically-questionable, abusively-wielded workplace culture monstrosity, peddled by a Chief Executive obsessed with framing himself as a messianic figure with divine knowledge of how businesses should work.'

'The book is centered around the theme of redemption, with the subtitle mentioning a “quest to rediscover Microsoft’s soul.” […] The dark age — Steve “Developers” Balmer’s Microsoft, with Microsoft stagnant and missing winnable opportunities, like mobile — contrasted against this brave, bright new era where a nearly-assertive Redmond pushes frontiers in places like AI.'

'Like any cult, it encourages the person to internalize their failures and externalize their successes.'

Ed Zitron: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-cult-of-microsoft/

"The emphasis on human oversight as a protective mechanism allows governments and vendors to have it both ways: they can promote an algorithm by proclaiming how its capabilities exceed those of humans, while simultaneously defending the algorithm and those responsible for it from scrutiny by pointing to the security (supposedly) provided by human oversight."

Ben Green https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3921216 via @pluralistic

A push for new automation may be redirected to the workers’ well-being. Funneling must be done by workers actively involved. Here is a win: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/yes-the-striking-dockworkers-were

#AI #bias:
“The people who will really, really know how tools are being used are refugees or incarcerated people or heavily policed communities,” Timnit Gebru said in the case. “And the issue is that, at the end of the day, those are also the communities with the least amount of power.”

in "Timnit Gebru: 'SILENCED No More' on AI Bias and The Harms of Large Language Models" by: Tsedal Neeley and Stefani Ruper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=62442

#AI performs

By design #generativeAI is extremely hungry in resources: https://mas.to/@maugendre/111841507744115766

#AI already serves to transform ways of working. You can even industrialize killing: https://techhub.social/@estelle/111505251994013079

#AI performs

By design #generativeAI is extremely hungry in resources: https://mas.to/@maugendre/111841507744115766

#AI already serves to transform ways of working. You can even industrialize killing: https://techhub.social/@estelle/111505251994013079

B., the senior officer, claimed that in the current war, “I would invest 20 seconds for each target at this stage, and do dozens of them every day. I had zero added value as a human, apart from being a stamp of approval. It saved a lot of time.”

According to B., a common error occurred “if the [Hamas] target gave [his phone] to his son, his older brother, or just a random man. That person will be bombed in his house with his family. This happened often. These were most of the mistakes caused by Lavender,” B. said.

https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/ @israel @data