do you want to be good or to be optimized?

22 March 2024 - kudos:

This Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic from yesterday spoke to me at a deep level: My first thoughts went to generative AI, an area in which I feel like a fetishization of optimization is crowding out really important questions of what is good. As I put it in a university survey earlier today, there are undeniable benefits to the use of AI tools, but there are important questions as to who benefits.

5 February 2024 - kudos:

I think what bothers me about “improving learning” approaches to educational technology is that it tends to prioritize utilitarianism at the expense of everything else. Ethical concerns about AI don’t matter if grades go up, what students should learn about is largely shoved aside, and so forth.

20 October 2023 - kudos:

I was dreaming that some STEM-type was criticizing Bachelor of Arts degrees as “BS” and dream-me flew into a rage ready to defend the humanities until I woke up and realized that his joke didn’t even work.

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Belonging: The Potions Master (Book 1, Chapter 8) | Harry Potter and the Sacred Text on Acast'

18 September 2022 - kudos:

I am very much here for Matt Potts criticizing Hogwarts for not embracing the humanities and the importance of the humanities. link to ‘Belonging: The Potions Master (Book 1, Chapter 8) | Harry Potter and the Sacred Text on Acast’

25 May 2022 - kudos:

I am, technically speaking, a STEM educator, but the reason I get so cranky about STEM hype is that these disciplines cannot on their own address the problems I’m most worried about right now.

22 June 2019 - kudos:

Sapiens is a challenging book, but that’s also why it’s a must-read. As much as its focus is on science & technology, I ultimately read it as a reminder that we need to ask ?s from the humanities to safely navigate our present and future.