Bias has always existed. It has always existed online. Now, with AI, there is another level of bias.
Bias generated by technology is “more than a glitch,” says one expert.
For example, why does AI have a bias against dark skin? It is because its data is scraped from the Internet, and the Internet is full of biased content.
This doesn't give AI a pass on bias. It is more of a comment or reflection on bias in general.
It is an important issue to cover but, unfortunately, I am not surprised to see a report covered with a BBC headline "More girls than boys exposed to harmful content online."
Teenage girls are more likely to be asked for nude photos online or be sent pornography or content promoting self-harm than boys, a report has found. The report is based on survey responses from around 6,500 young people, and they found that girls are "much more likely to experience something nasty or unpleasant online."
YouTube, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and TikTok were the most popular social media sites for both age groups, but more than three-quarters of 14-18-year-olds also used Instagram.
Many respondents reported spending significant amounts of time online. For instance, a third of 14-18-year-olds reported spending four hours or more online during a school day. Almost two-thirds reported spending more than four hours online at weekends. One in five 14-18-year-olds said they spent more than seven hours a day online on weekends.
One example is that one in five children and young people who took part in the research said something nasty or unpleasant had recently happened to them online. The most common experience was that "mean or nasty comments" were made about them or sent to them. But there was a difference between boys and girls when it came to the type of nasty online experience they had. Girls were more likely to have mean or nasty comments made about them or rumors spread about them.
More than 5% of girls aged 14-18 said they had been asked to send nude photos or videos online or expose themselves, three times higher than the rate among boys. More than 5% of 14-18 year-old girls also said they had seen or been sent pornography, and twice as many girls as boys reported being sent "inappropriate photos" they had not asked for. More girls than boys also reported being sent content promoting suicide, eating disorders and self-harm.
I spent all my years in higher education working in instructional technology. One of the parts of the department I ran with that title was our instructional designers. I think that if you had asked me in the early part of the century what the difference was between instructional design and learning design - a term that was not in use at the start of my higher ed career - I would have said that instructional design is learning design. But today, there is a distinction.
"Learning design" and "instructional design" are closely related fields but learning design pertains to the overarching process of designing learning experiences and environments. It encompasses the full range of the learning process from determining learners' needs to assessment.
Instructional design is a more specific aspect of learning design. It takes the principles of learning and instruction and creates concrete plans for instructional materials and experiences. You may call someone a learning designer but I stay with the instructional designer (ID) being the one crafting course content, activities, and evaluations.
Learning design includes many kinds of designs - informal, experiential, and self-directed learning. The ID focuses on the actual learning experiences.
A book or course on learning design will present models like ADDIE. Learning design is holistic design. Instructional design tailors the content and activities for formal learning.
Recently, a former colleague asked me what I thought about push versus pull learning. I knew the terms more from social media marketing but hadn't really used them in learning situations. In marketing, examples include whether to decide to subscribe to a newsletter by email or snail mail (you pull that information by choice) or a newsletter that comes to you automatically (it is pushed at you).
In general, I think people prefer to pull (choice) over having it pushed at them. Companies might prefer to push, but that probably comes with the option to stop that push (unsubscribe.)
Moving these approaches - or just the terms - to education makes some sense.
In a push approach, teachers decide on the information, approach, delivery method, and speed of delivery. It is how education has been done for centuries. It tends to start with what Bloom and his taxonomy would categorize as knowledge-level remember and understand questions. These would build toward more critical and creative thinking. With pull, students enter into creating, evaluating and analyzing that requires them to seek knowledge and understanding.
This conventional classroom-styled learning is not the only approach in the 21st century. Pull learning allows learners to access information at the point of need, the way they prefer (in some settings) at the speed they find comfortable. I think that the initial surge of MOOCs back in 2012 is a good example of learning that learners pulled as needed.
Pull puts learners more in control It flips the teacher-centered learning setting. However, we must acknowledge that learning in school at all levels is still very much push learning. Fortunately, the idea that students should be able to pull some learning as they feel they need it is gaining more acceptance and is being incorporated in instructional design planning.
Currently, pull learning experiences are probably best suited to workers who have learning needs based on job roles, personal knowledge, and advancing their career interests.
Ideally, learning is "push-pull" with appropriate information provided by a push and additional information required to complete tasks and goals pulled as needed. This is not really a new approach. When you were a student, you were certainly pushed information, but you might well have gone beyond what was provided and pulled additional information that you felt you needed.
MORE
https://www.responsiveinboundmarketing.com/blog/the-difference-between-push-and-pull-learning
https://www.teachthought.com/education/push-teaching-vs-pull-teaching-thinking/
On the same day, I saw three articles about artificial intelligence that made me view AI in different ways. One article was about how a chatbot powered by the Internet has passed exams at a U.S. law school after writing essays on law topics. Another article was about a company that is developing AI for warfare, but said they would only sell it to "democratic nations." The third article was about how AI makes the translation of difficult "dead" languages as well as interpreting medical tests faster and more accurately.
Jonathan Choi, a professor at Minnesota University Law School, gave ChatGPT the same test faced by students. It had 95 multiple-choice questions and 12 essay questions. He reported that the bot scored a C+ overall.
In my own essay testing, I have found that the bot can produce in seconds a "C" paper or the start of a better paper. It is impressive but it is not like a really good student's work. So far.
But many of the AI bot stories in the media are about jobs that are likely to be replaced by AI. One popular media story at cbsnews.com/ supposes that computer programmers and people doing administrative work that they term "mid-level writing" can be handled by AI. That latter category would include work like writing emails, human resources letters, producing advertising copy, and drafting press releases. Of course, there is always the possibility that a worker doing that could be freed from those tasks and put onto higher level tasks and actually benefit from the AI.
I have seen positive and negative results from using AI in media work and law. Some of the negative examples seem to me to be when the user expects too much from AI at this stage in its development.
I don't think we know today what AI and bots will change in the world of work by next year, but it is certainly an area that requires concern by individuals and those who can affect the broader culture.
The term "productivity paranoia” was a new one for me when I encountered it in a conversation. I had to admit ignorance and ask the speaker for a definition. I was told that this is when some bosses fear that remote employees aren’t working enough despite data showing just the opposite. He said, "Yeah, they get the work done, but I suspect they are also walking the dog, running errands and watching their kids during what should be 'working hours'."
Defined by Microsoft as a scenario “where leaders fear that lost productivity is due to employees not working, even though hours worked, number of meetings, and other activity metrics have increased,” productivity paranoia is mostly associated with remote/virtual and hybrid workers.
Productivity paranoia is prevalent enough that some companies have invested in expensive technology to monitor their employees’ whereabouts and active time online. Tracking software, surveillance cameras, and GPS data are all possibilities and in one survey 97% of business leaders surveyed believed such software has increased workers’ productivity.
But couldn't this level of tracking bordering on "surveillance" have negative effects on workers and perhaps on their productivity?
Some articles say that those who are so monitored tend to be less loyal and more distrustful of their employers. It certainly is a more stressful work environment.
Another article says that "the average adult’s focused attention span is between 90 and 120 minutes and peaks at about 45 minutes" and that "taking a 10-minute break between a working interval of up to 90 minutes can help reset your attention span and keep cognitive momentum going."
For me, that is too long a span. As I am an almost entirely virtual worker now, I have found myself using the "Pomodoro method."
When you start a task (not a project, but a piece of it), set a timer and work on that task for 25 minutes. Then, take a short break (3-5 minutes). Start working on the task again for 25 minutes and repeat until it’s completed. Not only is that short break good for your brain and concentration but physically it is important for you to get out of a chair and move.