Education not a universal ‘good’
In the British Library yesterday, I spent a few hours in their superb Taking Liberties exhibition which had a section on the clash between religious belief and freedom of speech. Iwent upstairs to see their collection of early Bibles, Korans and Torahs, one of the best collections of early books in the world. It set me thinking. Books such as Locke’s Two Treatises on Government, Mill’s On Liberty and Paine’s The Rights of Man...
Why is ‘AI and Ethics’ work mostly a waste of time? It’s rife with amateurism in ‘ethics’, confirmation bias, anthropomorphism and activism.
I run an AI company, have invested in AI companies, taught the application of AI in my field, give talks and podcasts on the subject and have written a book on the subject. Yet, most of the questions I get on AI and data are what people see as ‘ethical’ issues. The problem is that they’re mostly not.Actual ethicsThere is little in the way of actual ethics among those in this field. Questions about what moral philosophy is being...
Starlink changes everything. It may be the most important form of learning technology of the century
I was out in my garden in May last year, watching a stream of satellites pass in a line overhead. It was beautiful. Starlink changes everything. In online learning it absolutely changes everything. A global network of...
From Nazi Punchcards to the Cambrian Explosion of LMSs and now LXPs - a short history of enterprise learning software
IntroductionThe LMS (Learning Management System) and now LXP (Learning Experience Platform) have lots of roots, best seen historically as growing from several roots; hardware, software, business software, connectivity...
Empathy… “sounds wonderful but the search for empathy is simply misled” Donald Norman
I was looking at design methodologies and kept seeing the word ‘EMPATHY’ pop up. It puzzled me. I’ve read my Hume and thought, yes, empathy is a subjective feeling. If I have empathy with someone, it means I feel for them. Then I realised they were not using the word in this sense. They meant, literally putting yourself in their shoes or minds. That I find odd. How would a 25 year old graduate designer put themselves into the...
OEB debate on Higher Education... 7 mins each... here's my 7 mins worth...
‘This House Believes Universities, in Their Current Form, Are Unsustainable as Mass-participant Institutions’We each had 7 minutes to put our case… here’s mine…My 1st argument is PERSONALI have two sons – twins, now 27 years old – interesting experiment – one went to University and has a degree in AI, one did NOT. He hated school and University, sitting in lectures would have sucked then life out of him. The one who...
Emotion in Learning Experience Design - Norman's 3 facets; Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective...
Our lives would be impoverished without positive emotions such as fun, pleasure, joy, excitement; but also middling emotions of satisfaction, calmness, boredom; even negative emotions such as anger, sadness, melancholy...
Pay attention! Attention is a necessary condition for learning experience design, but poorly understood...
Pay attention! This is something you, and everyone else, are likely to have heard at school and the teachers were right. Attention is almost always a necessary condition for learning. The problem is that attention...
Let's move on from 'Unintelligible Intelligences' - IQ, Multiple Intelligences, Emotional Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence...
Eysenck (1916-1997) - IQ, assessment and personality...Binet, the man responsible for inventing the IQ (intelligence quotient) test, never saw it as being a ‘fixed’ for individuals. Sadly, his waning was ignored...
