Artificial Intelligence in 21st Century Education
13:00 – 14:15
Probe 3: How might an ethically and morally-informed AI be conceived in a culturally diverse global context? How might we realize a more equitably-designed, developed and deployed AI in light of the rate and range of disruption some have forecast as inevitable?
Panel: Abhishek Gupta, Nevena Francetic, Stephen Downes and video clips of Timnit Gebru & Rediet Abebe
Facilitator: Tylor Burrows
In my history of consumption class, I teach about #Sears, but what most people don't know is just how radical the catalogue was in the era of #Jim Crow. #twitterstorians
Every time a black southerner went to the local store they were confronted with forced deference to white customers who would be served first.
And the store would be filled with racist caricatures of black people in an effort to sell to white people.
The stores were not self-service, so the black customers would have to wait. And then would have to ask the proprietor to give them goods (often on credit because...sharecropping). The landlord often owned the store. In every way shopping reinforced hierarchy. Until #Sears
The catalog undid the power of the storekeeper, and by extension the landlord. Black families could buy without asking permission. Without waiting. Without being watched. With national (cheap) prices!
Southern storekeepers fought back. They organized catalogue bonfires in the street.
These general stores often doubled as post offices. The owners would refuse to sell stamps to black people, or money orders, to use the catalogue services.
Happened enough that sears instructed customers to evade the postmaster and directly speak to the mail carrier:
“just give the letter and the money to the mail carrier and he will get the money order at the post office and mail it in the letter for you.”
In an attempt to undermine #Sears, rumors spread that Sears was black (to get white customers to stop buying from him). Sold by mail “these fellows could not afford to show their faces as retailers”
Sears, in turn, published photos to “prove” he was white.
These rumors didn’t affect sales but show how race and commerce connected in the countryside. And how dangerous it was to the local order, to white supremacy, to have national markets.
So as we think about #Sears today, let's think about how retail is not just about buying things, but part of a larger system of power. Every act of power contains the opportunity, and the means, for resistance.
Wow. So much response! If you would like to know more about the larger history of Sears and resisting white supremacy, check out this video from our series on the history of capitalism. #thread. Also #JohnHenry and #webDubois.
You *may* have noticed that race and capitalism were not just problems in the 19th century. As I write about, African-Americans have always had a less equal access to the market, whether as consumers or as workers. For more: amazon.com/Temp-American-…
As prosecutors go after doctors, drug dealers and users, those who made billions of dollars from sales of a painkiller at the center of the epidemic have gone largely unpunished.
This is such a massive public health care issue, I’m shocked we haven’t gone to heavier regulation of the direct source.
A New York Times investigation finds that many pregnant women are systematically sidelined at work, passed over for promotions and fired when they complain.
"She was Joan of Arc, Madame Curie, and Florence Nightingale--all wrapped up in one."
One long, hot afternoon on Capitol Hill, in the summer of 1991, the most powerful man in Congress took on the most powerful person in American science. Science won. What does it take to end a reign of terror? The science fraud panic of the 1990s, part two of two.
We build a simple, but powerful and intuitive, model for when a hockey coach should pull the goalie when trailing. When the model reports that the coaches aren’t doing it nearly early enough, we then ask why, and take away some key lessons for portfolio and risk management, and business in general.
I provide a (very) brief introduction to game theory. I have developed these notes to provide quick access to some of the basics of game theory; mainly as an aid for students in courses in which I assumed familiarity with game theory but did not require it as a prerequisite.
"Crucial life lessons from the end of hockey games, Idris Elba, and some Wall Street guys with a lot of time on their hands."
Revisionist History wades into the crowded self-help marketplace, with some help with from a band of math whizzes and Hollywood screenwriters. It's late in a hockey game, and you're losing. When should you pull your goalie? And what if you used that same logic when a bad guy breaks into your house and holds your entire family hostage? We think the unthinkable, so you don’t have to.
Why one should be a bit more disagreeable and “pull the goalie”.
General Leonard Chapman guided the Marines Corp through some of the most difficult years in its history. He was brilliant, organized, decisive and indefatigable. Then he turned his attention to the America’s immigration crisis. You think you want effective leadership? Be careful what you wish for.
A piece of history I was surprised to not have heard about with relation to current immigration policy. Also a great example of how policy makers need to be able to think 20 steps into the potential futures to realize the ramifications of what they’re doing an the effects it will have on future generations.
Has the Everything Store become a dangerous monopoly threatening the U.S. economy?
Some time later this year, Amazon could become the first trillion-dollar company in American history. Its valuation has already doubled in the last 14 months to about $800 billion, and Jeff Bezos, its founder and CEO, is officially the richest man on the planet.
There are ways in which Amazon seems to be the greatest company in American history. It’s revolutionized the global shopping experience and expanded into media and hardware, while operating on razor-thin margins that have astonished critics. But some now consider it the modern incarnation of a railroad monopoly, a logistics behemoth using its scale to destroy competition.
So what is Amazon: brilliant, dangerous, or both? That’s the subject of the latest episode of Crazy/Genius, our new podcast on technology and culture.
To build the case for breaking up the Everything Store, I talk to Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at NYU and an outspoken critic of big tech, and Lina Khan, a researcher at the Open Markets Institute and a leading expert on antitrust policy. Both of them encourage me to see how a company famous for low prices can still behave in an anticompetitive manner. Making the case against heavy regulation for Amazon are Rob Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech think tank, and Michael Mandel, an economist with the Progressive Policy Institute who researches technology and e-commerce. Both encourage me to focus not only on the hidden costs of Amazon’s largeness, but also on the hidden benefits.
Last weekend, Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell sat out the first game of the regular season rather than play under the NFL franchise tag. Slated to earn $14.5 million in guaranteed money in 2018, Bell loses out on $855,529 each week he fails to report. The franchise tag would make Bell the third highest paid running back in the NFL this season — but only if he actually plays. Around the league, there is a wide range of speculation on how long Bell’s holdout will last. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports that his sources believe Bell could be back by the end of September, while others note his holdout could conceivably last through Week 10.
