Give me Volcanoes
/Give me silence, water, hope
Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes
- Edward Abbey
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
7 Articles about AI & Coding
/ChatGPT Spells The End Of Coding As We Know It – Digg
ChatGPT Isn't Coming for Your Coding Job – Wired
There’s a new AI unicorn that will make coders faster – Semafor
Can ChatGPT write better code than Data Scientist? – Medium
5 ChatGPT features to boost your daily work And how to enhance your code quality using it – Medium
Why AI hasn’t made coding skills obsolete – Fordham Institute
A Dozen Articles about AI Coming for Your Job
/The Jobs Most Exposed to ChatGPT – WSJ
ChatGPT Might Not Threaten Your Job as Much as the Hype Suggests It Will – The Street
Type in your job to see how much AI will affect it – Washington Post
Is AI Coming for Our Jobs? (with David Autor) – Café
Here are the 10 roles that AI is most likely to replace – Insider
Here’s How AI Will Come for Your Job – The Atlantic
Could ChatGPT do my job? – MIT Tech Review
Don't Believe Robots Are Taking Over Jobs: AI Will Open New Career Paths – Insider
Fear of becoming obsolete hits a new generation of workers – Axios
AI and automation will take more jobs from women than men, report says – Washington Post
Why I'm not worried about AI causing mass unemployment – Understanding AI
The U.S. needs policies now to support workers made redundant by artificial intelligence – The Atlantic
A technical objection
/A technical objection is the first refuge of a scoundrel. -Heywood Broun
Teaching Life Skills
/The data emerging about the mental health of our kids only confirms the harm done by asking so little of them when it comes to life skills yet so much of them when it comes to adhering to the academic plans we’ve made for them.
Karen Able is a staff psychologist at a large public university in the Midwest. (Her name has been changed here because of the sensitive nature of her work.) Based on her clinical experience, Able says, “Overinvolved parenting is taking a serious toll on the psychological well-being of college students who can’t negotiate a balance between consulting with parents and independent decision-making.”
When parents have tended to do the stuff of life for kids—the waking up, the transporting, the reminding about deadlines and obligations, the bill-paying, the question-asking, the decision-making, the responsibility-taking, the talking to strangers, and the confronting of authorities, kids may be in for quite a shock when parents turn them loose in the world of college or work. They will experience setbacks, which will feel to them like failure. Lurking beneath the problem of whatever thing needs to be handled is the student’s inability to differentiate the self from the parent.
Julie Lythcott-Haims, How to Raise an Adult
8 Media Webinars this week: Writing, AI, Teaching, Journalism, & More
/Mon, Sept 18 – Introducing the Media Dictionary
What: Join us to learn about this important national initiative and consider the opportunities and challenges faced by the Media Dictionary team. Discussion Questions include: Why is media literacy important in modern society? What kind of challenges does it address? What do you think are some effective strategies to increase media literacy in our societies?
Who: Dr. Jatin Srivastavais is Professor and Director at E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University; Dr. Vijayta Tanejais an Associate Professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, DIHE-JIMS Noida; Bhavna Pathak is National Secretary, International Association of Women Media Teachers.
When: 10 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Media Education Lab
Mon, Sept 18 - Transforming Education with AI: What Educators Need to Know
What: Educators will get a closer look at how AI’s rapid advancement is prompting a wave of change across the education landscape.
Who: Alex Kotran, Co-Founder and CEO, The AI Education Project; and Jennifer Ehehalt, Sr. Regional Manager, Midwest, Common Sense Education
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Common Sense Education
Tue, Sept 19 – Beyond the Headlines: Women Journalists in Africa
Who: Moderator Amaka Okoye, Freelance Journalist Gabrielle Nina Mitch, Ruth Nesoba with the BBC News; Independent Journalist Dicta Asiimwe
When: 12 noon
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Women In Journalism
Tue, Sept 19 - AI for Collaborative Journalism
What: A discussion of the methodology and development of a collaborative journalism platform, from concept to journalistic content creation.
Who: Sebastián Neter of Wingu, a non-profit organization focused on leveraging technology for social impact. María Paula Murcia, the creator of the Comments Library, a digital tool for analyzing social conversations on Mutante’s channels.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Code For All
Tue, Sept 19 – AI in the JMC Classroom
Who: Tiffany Gallicano, UNC Charlotte; Tait, Ball State University; Raluca Cozma, Kansas State University.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free for members
Sponsor: AEJMC (Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communcation)
Tue, Sept 19 - L.A. Times Ask A Reporter: Our Climate Change Challenge
What: This discussion, based on a Times special report investigating the state of climate change in California.
Who: LA Times reporters Rosanna Xia and Sammy Roth. City Editor Maria La Ganga will moderate.
When: 6 pm, Pacific
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: LA Times
Thu, Sept 21 - How To Write Stories That People Actually Want to Read
What: An introduction to interviewing, structuring and writing for impactful storytelling
Who: Courtney Crowder is the Iowa Columnist and a senior writer at the Des Moines Register.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: $35
Sponsor: Online Media Campus
Thu, Sept 21 - The Education Beat Is the Democracy Beat
What: The panel will talk about hot-button educational issues; learn story ideas and insider tips; and find inspiration in the experiences of both journalists and educators.
Who: Amy Zimmer is Chalkbeat's New York bureau chief. John Hildebrand is the senior education writer for Newsday. Adam Fine has been superintendent of the East Hampton Union Free School District since September 2021.
When: 6 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: The Press Club of Long Island
What makes you come alive?
/Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Self-Control as a Child
/Behaving yourself as a child brings big rewards in adulthood. Researchers tracked more than 1,000 people from toddlerhood into their early 30s and found that the more self-control they showed as kids, the healthier, wealthier, and happier they were as grown-ups. By contrast, children who struggled to complete tasks and handle frustration without lashing out at their peers were more likely to be overweight, drug dependent, and ridden with debt as adults. The study’s authors say that self-control can be taught and nurtured with practice, and that no matter what a child’s circumstances, “good parenting can improve self-control and improve life success.”
The Week Magazine
Free yourself from negative people
/Spend time with nice people who are smart, driven and like-minded. Relationships should help you, not hurt you. Surround yourself with people who reflect the person you want to be. Choose friends who you are proud to know, people you admire, who love and respect you – people who make your day a little brighter simply by being in it. Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you.
Renee Jones, read more here
Everyone is ignorant
/Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.
10 Amazing Things AI is being used to do
/AI chatbots were tasked to run a tech company. They built software in under seven minutes — for less than $1. – Business Insider
AI Has Already Created As Many Images As Photographers Have Taken in 150 Years. Statistics for 2023 – Every Pixel
A.I. Can’t Build a High-Rise, but It Can Speed Up the Job – New York Times
AI-generated books are infiltrating online bookstores - Axios
GenAI Is Making Data Science More Accessible - Datanami
Can AI summaries save you from endless virtual meetings? – Washington Post
Amazon is bringing a whole lot of AI to Thursday Night Football this season – The Verge
7 Projects Built with Generative AI by Data Scientists – KD Nuggets
The Novel Written about—and with—Artificial Intelligence – The Walrus
The IRS will use AI to crack down on wealthy potential tax violators - Axios
Rich and Poor Cheat for Different Reasons
/In certain circumstances, it's the poor who are more likely to cheat. The difference is that the rich do wrong to help themselves, while the poor do wrong to help others. In several experiments reported in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology… the studies suggest a straightforward sequence: Money leads to the perception that one is higher in the social hierarchy, which in turn leads to a sense of power, which in turn leads to a greater willingness to cheat for selfish reasons.
People with less money (and therefore less power), however, are more communal. They need to rely on each other to get by, and as a result, research shows, they’re more compassionate and empathically accurate. Breaking rules is always risky, but social cohesion is paramount — so you do what it takes to help those around you.
The researchers think their findings could lead to some easy practical applications. If you’re speaking to higher-class individuals, you might want to appeal to their selfishness and warn that cheating will ultimately backfire. But when talking to those with fewer resources, you might be better off noting that their actions could harm those around them.
Matthew Hutson, New York Magazine
10 Articles about AI use in Academic Papers
/Scientific sleuths spot dishonest ChatGPT use in papers – Nature
AI poses risks to research integrity, universities say – Research Professional News
No, ChatGPT Can’t Be Your New Research Assistant – London School of Economics
Useful applications of AI in higher education – for which no specialist tech knowledge is needed – Times of Higher Ed
Guidance for Authors, Peer Reviewers, and Editors on Use of AI, Language Models, and Chatbots – JAMA Network
How A.I. systems can accelerate scientific research – New York Times
Publishers seek protection from AI mining of academic research – Times Higher Ed
Artificial-intelligence search engines wrangle academic literature – Nature
AI can crack double blind peer review – should we still use it? – London School of Economics
Fabrication and errors in the bibliographic citations generated by ChatGPT – Nature
Driven to Obligation
/When we are locked into imperative thinking, we hold our absolute conviction so tightly that we have little or no recognition of our choice to say no! Obligation becomes our driving force. Relationships with other people and our responsibilities to them then become matters of dread, resentment, guilt.
Our need for a structured, orderly life can be so powerful that we refuse to make allowances for choices. To us, circumstances are either black or white. Once we settle upon a conviction or preference, we feel rigidly obligated to abide by it, with little variation.
Imperative people are almost afraid to allow for the luxury of choices. We feel the need to minimize our risks by sticking to the rules that we have made for ourselves.
Les Carter, Imperative People: Those Who Must Be in Control
12 Free Webinars This Week: journalism, reporting, trauma, storytelling, the First Amendment, photography & More
/Mon, Sept 11 – Media Law Office Hours
What: The open group session allows journalists with legal questions to help find answers on issues related to the First Amendment, Freedom of Information, copyright, defamation, or other media law matters.
Who: Attorney Matthew Leish
When: 5 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free for members
Sponsor: New York Deadline Club
Tue, Sept 12 - Reporting on the Future of COVID-19 Vaccine Coverage and Reimbursement
What: Between back-to-school appointments and the impending cold and flu season, now is the time to get up to speed on COVID-19 vaccine coverage. This webinar will help journalists answer key questions and clear up confusion for the public about COVID-19 vaccine costs, availability, efficacy and timing.
Who: Dr. Mario Ramirez, emergency physician and Acting Director, HHS Office of Global Affairs Office of Pandemic and Emerging Threats; Patricia M. D'Antonio, BSPharm, MS, MBA, BCGP, Vice President of Policy and Professional Affairs for The Gerontological Society of America; Alexander Tin of CBS News. Other speakers will be listed here as they are confirmed.
When: 10 am, Central
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: The COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project, National Press Foundation
Tue, Sept 12 - “What’s the Story" – Photography Storytelling Tips
What: Learn the art of storytelling and how you can use it as a way develop personal style, attract customers, and much, much more.
Who: Jamie House, lifelong photographer and representative of the Lumix brand
When: 12 noon, Central
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Lumix
Tue, Sept 12 - Lessons from Pro-Democracy Newsrooms
What: Training on best practices for incorporating solutions reporting into elections and democracy coverage.
Who: Ashley Hopkinson and Jaisal Noor from the Solutions Journalism Network
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Solutions Journalism Network
Wed, Sept 13 - How to Work with (Almost) Anyone
What: In this practical session, you'll learn how to reverse that trend and build the best possible working relationship with anyone. Well, almost anyone. You will learn the three attributes of a resilient and long-lasting relationship, understand how you can aspire to “the best possible relationship” with every one of your key working relationships, investigate the one awkward but essential conversation that will set up success, and take a deep dive into one of the essential questions, and prepare your best answers to them
Who: Michael Bungay Stanier Author, Founder, MBS.works and author of “The Coaching Habit.”
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Training Magizine Network
Wed, Sept 13 - Psychological Training: Stress, Burnout and Trauma
What: This training session online will discuss coping with stress, burnout and trauma on the job. The session will cover the basics of self-care and collegial support, including the impact of covering trauma and tragedy on journalists, and offer concrete guidance and techniques for enriching one’s coping skills and wellness, and building resilient news teams. The training will include a slide presentation and briefing, as well as a Q&A. The training is limited to 50 participants.
Who: Elana Newman, Ph.D., the McFarlin Professor of Psychology at the University of Tulsa, and has conducted research on a wide range of topics regarding the psychological and physical response to traumatic life events, assessment of PTSD in children and adults, journalism and trauma, and understanding the impact of participating in trauma-related research from the trauma survivor’s perspective.
When: 10 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma
Wed, Sept 13 - Pen America at the National Constitution Center’s National First Amendment Summit
What: This summit will address the increasing threats to freedom of expression and the challenges ahead posed by new technologies.
Who: Author Salman Rushdie will engage in a virtual keynote conversation about the importance of free speech in a democratic society and the forces of censorship that imperil its existence.
When: 5:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: PEN America
Thu, Sept 14 - Reporting in a Polarized Society
What: How can journalists detect signs of polarization in the communities they cover and in the newsrooms where they work? Dividing forces are nothing new in American society, although recent years have seen an intensifying inflammatory narrative. Assumptions about both working-class populations and communities of color can be damaging.
Who: Phillip Martin, Senior Investigative Reporter, GBH News Center for Investigative Reporting
When: 12 noon
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: The New England Equity Reporting Community of Practice
Thu, Sept 14 - How Transparency Can Elevate Readers’ Trust
What: Learn how you can be the trusted source that readers turn to when they’re looking for news.
Who: Mark Stencel, executive director for JournalList, Ralph Brown, journalist
When: 11 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Virginia Press Association
Thu, Sept 14 - The Power of Storytelling in Digital Marketing
What: Discover the transformative power of storytelling and its potential to drive your business forward. Learn how storytelling can shape your brand, engage your audience, and inspire your team. Unlock the secrets of the world's most influential brands and carve your unique narrative.
When: 12 noon, Pacific
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: East LA BusinessSource Center
Thu, Sept 14 - Developing Data Stories: Using Global Forest Watch for Journalism
What: Are you new to environmental journalism or looking to expand your data toolbox? Learn how maps and data can take your reporting to the next level and bring stories to life during an upcoming webinar about forest data and equips journalists with tools to research and communicate the state of forest change around the world.
When: 9 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Global Forest Watch
Fri, Sept 15 - Public records you can find online
What: Need to verify the rank of a dead veteran? Wondering about access to New York criminal records? Trying to find the maiden name of a twice-married woman? For journalists, knowing where to look – without waiting on a public information request response – is key. Participants will gain: A working knowledge of public records that exist online and where to find them, strategies for efficient independent public record searches and guidance on practical searches for more common fact-checks
Who: Award-winning investigator Caryn Baird will present a practical working model of public records research based on her years of experience at the Tampa Bay Times.
When: 11:30 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: National Press Club
Cunningham’s Law
/Cunningham’s Law is the observation that the best way to get a good or right answer is not to ask a question; it’s to post a wrong answer. So, if you want to know the leading causes of World War I, go to a history forum and post, “World War One was entirely caused by the British.” Sit back, grab some popcorn, and wait for the angry — yet probably informed — corrections to come flying in.
Socrates, did a lot of it. Socrates would sit on some public bench and talk to whoever happened to sit next to him. He’d often open his dialogues by presenting a false or deeply flawed argument and go from there. He would ironically agree with whatever his partner would say, but then raise a seemingly innocuous question to challenge that position.
“Socratic irony” is where you pretend to be ignorant of something so you can get greater clarity about it. In short, it’s a lot like Cunningham’s Law.
Here are two ways you can use Cunningham’s Law:
The Bad Option: Have you ever been in a group where no one can decide what decision to make, and so you hover about in an awkward, polite limbo? “What restaurant shall we go to?” gets met with total silence. Instead try saying, “Let’s go to McDonald’s” and see how others object and go on to offer other ideas.
The Coin Toss: If you’re unsure about any life decision — like “should I read this book or that book next?” or “Should I leave my job or not?” — do a coin toss. Heads you do X, tails you do Y. You are not actually going to live by the coin’s decision, but you need to make a note of your reaction to whatever outcome came of it. Were you upset at what it landed on? Are you secretly relieved? It’s a good way to elicit your true thoughts on a topic.
Jonny Thomson writing in BigThink
13 Articles about AI & the Bigger Questions
/If AI becomes conscious: here’s how researchers will know - Nature
AI & Internet’s Existential Crisis - OM
Large language models aren’t people. Let’s stop testing them as if they were. - MIT Tech Review
Author Talks: In the ‘age of AI,’ what does it mean to be smart? - McKinsey
Why humans will never understand AI - BBC
Does an AI poet actually have a soul? - Washington Post
Is AI Eroding Our Ability To Think? - ForbesThe future of accelerating intelligence - The Kurzweil Library
M.F.A. vs. GPT How to push the art of writing out of a computer’s reach - The Atlantic
What Stephen King — and nearly everyone else — gets wrong about AI and the Luddites - LA Times
How the AI Revolution Will Reshape the World - TIME
How To Make Someone Truly Feel Heard
/Be intentional about learning what the other person wants to communicate and respond to their feelings.
Listen to what they’re telling you and suppress the urge to fix the issue, problem solve, or change the way they are feeling about the situation.
Put your own feelings aside to create a space where another person can speak his or her mind—which requires staying calm.
Suspending judgment and simply taking in what is being said can go a long way towards helping someone feel heard or diffusing an argument.
Show that you are actively listening and are truly understanding what the other person is saying by mirroring back what someone has said. Include phrases like ‘it sounds like’ or ‘it seems like.’
Take the time for silence in a discussion, showing that you’re processing what is being talked about and giving it the space that it needs to sink in properly.
Edited from Jeremy Brown writing in Fatherly
Drinking Poison
/Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. - Saint Augustine
17 Articles about the Business of Running an AI
/AI Startup Buzz Is Facing a Reality Check – Wall Street Journal
Nearly 20% of the world's top 1,000 websites are blocking crawler bots that gather data for AI services – Originality.AI
Prediction: AI will add $4.4 trillion to the global economy annually – New York Times
Behind the AI boom, an army of overseas workers in ‘digital sweatshops’ – Washington Post
How ChatGPT Kicked Off an A.I. Arms Race – New York Times
How ChatGPT became the next big thing - Axios
OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic - TIME
The state of AI in 2023: Generative AI’s breakout year – McKinsey
Microsoft confirms it’s investing billions in the creator of ChatGPT - CNN
What to know about OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT - Washington Post
AI is entering an era of corporate control - The Verge
Inside Meta's scramble to catch up on AI - Reuters
Immigrants play outsize role in the AI game - Axios
Apple Is an AI Company Now - The Atlantic
Websites That Have Blocked OpenAI’s GPTBot CCBot Anthropic, a 1000 Website Study - Originality. ai
What OpenAI Really Wants - Wired