intelligent systems

Reflections on “Uh-oh: Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system” [Elgan]

On 08/27/2019, in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, emerging technologies, ethics, face-to-face, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, hearts -- matters of the heart, intelligent systems, internet, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, morals/values, platforms, policy, political science, privacy, society, surviving, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Uh-oh: Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system — from fastcompany.com by Mike Elgan
In China, scoring citizens’ behavior is official government policy. U.S. companies are increasingly doing something similar, outside the law.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Have you heard about China’s social credit system? It’s a technology-enabled, surveillance-based nationwide program designed to nudge citizens toward better behavior. The ultimate goal is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” according to the Chinese government.

In place since 2014, the social credit system is a work in progress that could evolve by next year into a single, nationwide point system for all Chinese citizens, akin to a financial credit score. It aims to punish for transgressions that can include membership in or support for the Falun Gong or Tibetan Buddhism, failure to pay debts, excessive video gaming, criticizing the government, late payments, failing to sweep the sidewalk in front of your store or house, smoking or playing loud music on trains, jaywalking, and other actions deemed illegal or unacceptable by the Chinese government.
…
IT CAN HAPPEN HERE
Many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system. But such systems, it turns out, are not unique to China. A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social media activity by private companies.

Here are some of the elements of America’s growing social credit system.

If current trends hold, it’s possible that in the future a majority of misdemeanors and even some felonies will be punished not by Washington, D.C., but by Silicon Valley. It’s a slippery slope away from democracy and toward corporatocracy.

From DSC:
Who’s to say what gains a citizen points and what subtracts from their score? If one believes a certain thing, is that a plus or a minus? And what might be tied to someone’s score? The ability to obtain food? Medicine/healthcare? Clothing? Social Security payments? Other?

We are giving a huge amount of power to a handful of corporations…trust comes into play…at least for me. Even internally, the big tech co’s seem to be struggling as to the ethical ramifications of what they’re working on (in a variety of areas).

Is the stage being set for a “Person of Interest” Version 2.0?

Google brings AI to studying with Socratic — from zdnet.com by Stephanie Condon
Ahead of the new school year, Google is re-launching a mobile learning app it acquired last year.

Excerpt:

Google this week started rolling out a revamped version of a mobile learning app, called Socratic, that the tech giant acquired last year. The updated app, with new machine learning-powered features, coincides with the start of the school year, as well as other Google for Education initiatives.

Socratic aims to help both high school and university students in their studies outside of the classroom. If students need help answering a study question, they can now use the Socratic app to ask a question with their voice, or to take a picture of a question in their study materials. The app will then find relevant material from across the web.

Also see:

The School of Tomorrow Will Revolve Around AI — from datafloq.com
Excerpt:
We live in exponential times, and merely having a digital strategy focused on continuous innovation is no longer enough to thrive in a constantly changing world. To transform an organisation and contribute to building a secure and rewarding networked society, collaboration among employees, customers, business units and even things is increasingly becoming key.Especially with the availability of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, organisations now, more than ever before, need to focus on bringing together the different stakeholders to co-create the future. Big data empowers customers and employees, the Internet of Things will create vast amounts of data and connects all devices, while artificial intelligence creates new human-machine interactions. In today’s world, every organisation is a data organisation, and AI is required to make sense of it all.

Addendum on 8/23/19

Google: Gmail’s new AI spelling, grammar checks help you avoid email blunders — from zdnet.com by Liam Tung
Gmail on G Suite gains new AI-assisted spellcheck and grammar features.

Why cities are banning facial recognition technology [Wired.com]

On 08/08/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, data related items, ethics, human-computer interaction (HCI), intelligent systems, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, pace of change, platforms, society, the downsides of how people use tech, United States, by Daniel Christian

A handful of US cities have banned government use of facial recognition technology due to concerns over its accuracy and privacy. WIRED’s Tom Simonite talks with computer vision scientist and lawyer Gretchen Greene about the controversy surrounding the use of this technology.

China has started a grand experiment in AI education. It could reshape how the world learns. — from technologyreview.com by Karen Hao
In recent years, the country has rushed to pursue “intelligent education.” Now its billion-dollar ed-tech companies are planning to export their vision overseas.

Excerpt:

Zhou Yi was terrible at math. He risked never getting into college. Then a company called Squirrel AI came to his middle school in Hangzhou, China, promising personalized tutoring. He had tried tutoring services before, but this one was different: instead of a human teacher, an AI algorithm would curate his lessons. The 13-year-old decided to give it a try. By the end of the semester, his test scores had risen from 50% to 62.5%. Two years later, he scored an 85% on his final middle school exam.

“I used to think math was terrifying,” he says. “But through tutoring, I realized it really isn’t that hard. It helped me take the first step down a different path.”

The strategy has fueled mind-boggling growth. In the five years since it was founded, the company has opened 2,000 learning centers in 200 cities and registered over a million students—equal to New York City’s entire public school system. It plans to expand to 2,000 more centers domestically within a year. To date, the company has also raised over $180 million in funding. At the end of last year, it gained unicorn status, surpassing $1 billion in valuation.

DSC: Holy smokes!!! How might this be applied to education/learning/training in the 21st century!?!

On 07/30/2019, in 21st century, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, business, change, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Cost of legal services - including access, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, languages and translation, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, presentations, social learning / networks, society, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

DC: Holy smokes!!! How might this be applied to education/learning/training in the 21st century!?!

“What if neither distance nor language mattered? What if technology could help you be anywhere you need to be and speak any language? Using AI technology and holographic experiences this is possible, and it is revolutionary.”

Also see:

Microsoft has a wild hologram that translates HoloLens keynotes into Japanese — from theverge.com by Tom Warren
Azure and HoloLens combine for a hint at the future

Excerpt:

Microsoft has created a hologram that will transform someone into a digital speaker of another language. The software giant unveiled the technology during a keynote at the Microsoft Inspire partner conference [on 7/17/19] in Las Vegas. Microsoft recently scanned Julia White, a company executive for Azure, at a Mixed Reality capture studio to transform her into an exact hologram replica.

The digital version appeared onstage to translate the keynote into Japanese. Microsoft has used its Azure AI technologies and neural text-to-speech to make this possible. It works by taking recordings of White’s voice, in order to create a personalized voice signature, to make it sound like she’s speaking Japanese.

Pearson moves away from print textbooks [Kelly]

On 07/17/2019, in 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, Bring your own device (BYOD), change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, data related items, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education technology, faculty, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, microlearning, mobile learning, multimedia, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, publishing, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, textbooks, tools, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Pearson moves away from print textbooks — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpt:

All of Pearson’s 1,500 higher education textbooks in the U.S. will now be “digital first.” The company announced its big shift away from print today, calling the new approach a “product as a service model and a generational business shift to be much more like apps, professional software or the gaming industry.”

The digital format will allow Pearson to update textbooks on an ongoing basis, taking into account new developments in the field of study, new technologies, data analytics and efficacy research, the company said in a news announcement. The switch to digital will also lower the cost for students: The average e-book price will be $40, or $79 for a “full suite of digital learning tools.”

Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends For 2020 –from forbes.com by Daniel Newman

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

A faster WiFi for a faster world: Although WiFi 6 and 5G are completely different technologies, both will be bringing us much faster processing and wireless connection speeds in 2020. 5G and WiFi 6 working in concert will create the perfect end-to-end combination of ultra-fast connectivity for home and office. Expect download speeds up to 3x faster than were achievable with WiFi 5, but that isn’t the best measure of the new standard’s value. The real value of WiFi 6 will be its ability to extend faster data speeds to far more devices than WiFi 5 was able to manage.

Top 9 Ways Artificial Intelligence Prevents Fraud [Columbus]

On 07/12/2019, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, ideas, intelligent systems, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, tools, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Top 9 Ways Artificial Intelligence Prevents Fraud — from forbes.com by Louis Columbus

Excerpt:

Bottom Line:
Rule-based engines and simple predictive models could identify the majority of fraud attempts in the past, yet they aren’t keeping up with the scale and severity of fraud attempts today. Fraud attempts and breaches are more nuanced, with organized crime and state-sponsored groups using machine learning algorithms to find new ways to defraud digital businesses. Fraud-based attacks have a completely different pattern, sequence, and structure, which make them undetectable using rules-based logic and predictive models alone.

AI Is A Perfect Match For the Challenges Of Battling Fraud

Reflections on “Clay Shirky on Mega-Universities and Scale” [Christian]

On 07/06/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Blockchain, business, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Cost of legal services - including access, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, disruption, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, Facebook / Meta Platforms, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, love of learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, open courseware and systems, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, telecommunications, tools, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Clay Shirky on Mega-Universities and Scale — from philonedtech.com by Clay Shirky
[This was a guest post by Clay Shirky that grew out of a conversation that Clay and Phil had about IPEDS enrollment data. Most of the graphs are provided by Phil.]

Excerpts:

Were half a dozen institutions to dominate the online learning landscape with no end to their expansion, or shift what Americans seek in a college degree, that would indeed be one of the greatest transformations in the history of American higher education. The available data, however, casts doubt on that idea.

Though much of the conversation around mega-universities is speculative, we already know what a mega-university actually looks like, one much larger than any university today. It looks like the University of Phoenix, or rather it looked like Phoenix at the beginning of this decade, when it had 470,000 students, the majority of whom took some or all of their classes online. Phoenix back then was six times the size of the next-largest school, Kaplan, with 78,000 students, and nearly five times the size of any university operating today.

From that high-water mark, Phoenix has lost an average of 40,000 students every year of this decade.

From DSC:
First of all, I greatly appreciate both Clay’s and Phil’s thought leadership and their respective contributions to education and learning through the years. I value their perspectives and their work. Clay and Phil offer up a great article here — one worth your time to read.

The article made me reflect on what I’ve been building upon and tracking for the last decade — a next generation ***PLATFORM*** that I believe will represent a powerful piece of a global learning ecosystem. I call this vision, “Learning from the Living [Class] Room.” Though the artificial intelligence-backed platform that I’m envisioning doesn’t yet fully exist — this new era and type of learning-based platform ARE coming. The emerging signs, technologies, trends — and “fingerprints”of it, if you will — are beginning to develop all over the place.

Such a platform will:

Be aimed at the lifelong learner.
Offer up major opportunities to stay relevant and up-to-date with one’s skills.
Offer access to the program offerings from many organizations — including the mega-universities, but also, from many other organizations that are not nearly as large as the mega-universities.
Be reliant upon human teachers, professors, trainers, subject matter experts, but will be backed up by powerful AI-based technologies/tools. For example, AI-based tools will pulse-check the open job descriptions and the needs of business and present the top ___ areas to go into (how long those areas/jobs last is anyone’s guess, given the exponential pace of technological change).

…

Below are some quotes that I want to comment on:

Not nothing, but not the kind of environment that will produce an educational Amazon either, especially since the top 30 actually shrank by 0.2% a year.

Instead of an “Amazon vs. the rest” dynamic, online education is turning into something much more widely adopted, where the biggest schools are simply the upper end of a continuum, not so different from their competitors, and not worth treating as members of a separate category.

Since the founding of William and Mary, the country’s second college, higher education in the U.S. hasn’t been a winner-take-all market, and it isn’t one today. We are not entering a world where the largest university operates at outsized scale, we’re leaving that world;

From DSC:
I don’t see us leaving that world at all…but that’s not my main reflection here. Instead, I’m not focusing on how large the mega-universities will become. When I speak of a forthcoming Walmart of Education or Amazon of Education, what I have in mind is a platform…not one particular organization.

Consider that the vast majority of Amazon’s revenues come from products that other organizations produce. They are a platform, if you will. And in the world of platforms (i.e., software), it IS a winner take all market.

Bill Gates reflects on this as well in this recent article from The Verge:

“In the software world, particularly for platforms, these are winner-take-all markets.

So it’s all about a forthcoming platform — or platforms. (It could be more than one platform. Consider Apple. Consider Microsoft. Consider Google. Consider Facebook.)

But then the question becomes…would a large amount of universities (and other types of organizations) be willing to offer up their courses on a platform? Well, consider what’s ALREADY happening with FutureLearn:

Finally…one more excerpt from Clay’s article:

Eventually the new ideas lose their power to shock, and end up being widely copied. Institutional transformation starts as heresy and ends as a section in the faculty handbook.

From DSC:
This is a great point. Reminds me of this tweet from Fred Steube (and I added a piece about Western Telegraph):

Why would anyone need a telephone when we already have the telegraph? [Western Telegraph] https://t.co/s6Rm67NAB0

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) May 23, 2019

Some things to reflect upon…for sure.

I wonder if this is where some of the AI-based legal platforms are heading [Christian]

On 07/05/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, Cost of legal services - including access, Daniel S. Christian, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, society, tools, by Daniel Christian

DC: A reflection on slide #13 from
Inge de Waard #LegalOperations #Law #Innovation #EmergingTechnologies #AI #LegalTech #CostOfLegalServices #AccessToLegalServices https://t.co/u2tJAwVbxb pic.twitter.com/OS9dRy5fge

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) July 5, 2019

Likely a piece of our future learning ecosystems [Christian]

On 07/05/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, IT in HE, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, online learning, personalized/customized learning, platforms, society, tools, trends, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, by Daniel Christian

DC: Likely a piece of our future learning ecosystems… #AI #LearningEcosystems #Learning #LifelongLearning #Platforms https://t.co/rIISC4BQ8b via @YouTube

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) July 5, 2019

From DSC:
First of all, a couple of articles:

This futuristic driverless pod will soon be delivering pizza in Texas — from digitaltrends.com by Trevor Mogg

Excerpt:

Global pizza purveyor Domino’s is planning to use self-driving pods to deliver its cheesy meals to hungry customers. The food company is partnering with California-based tech startup Nuro for a trial service in Houston, Texas later this year.

Amazon is creating detailed 3D models of suburbia to train its new delivery robots — from theverge.com by James Vincent
‘Eventually, we’ll be delivering around the world.’

From DSC:
Instead of Amazon having their army of robots/drones, Domino’s having their army of driverless pods, etc…perhaps we should think about how we want this all to unfold in the future — especially with an eye on what the world will be like for future generations.

“The company won’t say where or when it plans to expand these tests…”

From DSC:
It should NOT be Amazon’s decision (nor Domino’s decision, nor any other company’s decision) to expand any tests here! It should be up to citizens to weigh in on what we want our future to look like before any such endeavors are allowed to move forward another inch.

From DSC:
I just ran across this recently…what do you think of it?!

From DSC:
For me, this is extremely disturbing. And if I were a betting man, I’d wager that numerous nations/governments around the world — most certainly that includes the U.S. — have been developing new weapons of warfare for years that are based on artificial intelligence, robotics, automation, etc.

The question is, now what do we do?

Some very hard questions that numerous engineers and programmers need to be asking themselves these days…

By the way, the background audio on the clip above should either be non-existent or far more ominous — this stuff is NOT a joke.

Also see this recent posting. >>

Addendum on 6/26/19:

Death by algorithm: the age of killer robots is closer than you think — from vox.com by Kelsey Piper
We have the technology to make robots that kill without oversight. But should we?

Experts in machine learning and military technology say it would be technologically straightforward to build robots that make decisions about whom to target and kill without a “human in the loop” — that is, with no person involved at any point between identifying a target and killing them. And as facial recognition and decision-making algorithms become more powerful, it will only get easier.

“Tech giants believe that voice is as big as touchscreen…” [Wynter Elwood]

On 06/19/2019, in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, IT in HE, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, Microsoft, mobile learning, mobile technologies, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, student-related, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Do you have a virtual personal assistant? With #VoiceAssistants we might get time back to do what we want to do. Tech giants believe that voice is as big as touchscreen and will invest a lot in the further development. #Microsoft #Google https://t.co/uPqkKyiPT3 pic.twitter.com/IjeVn5Af4p

— Wynter (@WynterElwood) June 17, 2019

Also see:

Microsoft is building a virtual assistant for work. Google is building one for everything else — from qz.com by Dave Gershgorn

Excerpts:

In the early days of virtual personal assistants, the goal was to create a multipurpose digital buddy—always there, ready to take on any task. Now, tech companies are realizing that doing it all is too much, and instead doubling down on what they know best.
…
Since the company has a deep understanding of how organizations work, Microsoft is focusing on managing your workday with voice, rearranging meetings and turning the dials on the behemoth of bureaucracy in concert with your phone.

Voice is the next major platform, and being first to it is an opportunity to make the category as popular as Apple made touchscreens. To dominate even one aspect of voice technology is to tap into the next iteration of how humans use computers.

From DSC:
What affordances might these developments provide for our future learning spaces?

Will faculty members’ voices be recognized to:

Sign onto the LMS?
Dim the lights?
Turn on the projector(s) and/or display(s)?
Other?

Will students be able to send the contents of their mobile devices to particular displays via their voices?

Will voice be mixed in with augmented reality (i.e., the students and their devices can “see” which device to send their content to)?

Hmmm…time will tell.

Learning Ecosystems

China has started a grand experiment in AI education. It could reshape how the world learns. [Hao]

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