Facebook turns 20 today, but the platform is nothing like what it was in 2004 – or, more comparably, in 2008, when it overtook MySpace, it was open to all (not just uni students) and it had the reputation of being a “safe space,” Forbes reports, because everyone had to sign up with their real name. Ah, I remember it well. Despite the grilling he received on Capitol Hill last week, Mark … [Read more...] about Much-less-social media on Facebook’s 20th birthday
generative AI
Welcome to 2024!
Happy New Year, dear readers! It was quite a year last year, eh? I'm sure that, like me, many of you are glad to move on. More on what we're moving into in a moment, but first let's use one of the biggest news stories (not just tech stories) of 2023 – generative AI – to look at the Top 5 news stories of the past year. I asked both Microsoft's Bing, powered by ChatGPT4, and Google's Bard, … [Read more...] about Welcome to 2024!
Should our kids learn how to use generative AI? Well…
A teacher in an international school in Panama asks her students to critique essays "written" by ChatGPT, while others have their students fact-check AI material, according to Time. University of Pennsylvania professor Ethan Mollick requires his students to use generative AI while holding them accountable for the information in whatever they produce with it. These are great ways for students both … [Read more...] about Should our kids learn how to use generative AI? Well…
Generative AI: July 2023 freeze frame
It's feeling like I need a large language model brain to write about safety with large language models. [I certify that I only wish I had such a brain, and I am a human.] So let's freeze the film for a moment and see where we humans are with generative AI safety. First, so that we're all on the same page, a large language model is basically an algorithmic structure called a "neural … [Read more...] about Generative AI: July 2023 freeze frame
Then there’s the flip side of ChatGPT
Consider this Part 2. Earlier this month I wrote about the earliest takes on ChatGPT, zooming in on how it could be really good for media literacy education. Now we know more. So below another dimension of this new technology with a cautionary note.... Ok, the dark side. I don't usually go "there," because, well, our brains typically do, by default, whenever a new technology emerges, and there … [Read more...] about Then there’s the flip side of ChatGPT