Charlie Gedeon
@charliegedeon
Reflecting on how learning and creativity are shaped by technology and our interactions with it. Co-founder of Pragmatics Studio, a small digital design studio in Montreal.
charliegedeon.comCharlie Gedeon
The thing that no one ever tells you about your calling is that it’s boring. Oh, everything is interesting if you’re interested… shut up. Yes, it will be exhilarating and fun and fluid and and natural and meaningful. It will also be tedious. It will hurt. You will encounter obstacle after obstacle until you feel like you’re in a video game with alg... See more
Instead of a holistic and intersectional approach, entrenched in the ability to tap into collective support structures as a form of personal resilience, healing is depoliticised and rendered a singular and individual trauma chronically dependent on a capitalist and extractivist commercialisation of Indigenous knowledge (Yoga, Ayahuasca, herbal medi... See more
Leil Zahra Mortada • Solidarity between catastrophic singularity and disastrous individualism — Against Catastrophe
Our future will be characterized by a tension between copilot (AI as collaborator) and autopilot (humans as sidekick to AI).
Google’s NotebookLM Aims to Be the Ultimate Writing Assistant
When used properly, metaphors enhance speech. But correctly dosing the metaphorical spice in the dish of language is no easy task. They ‘must not be far-fetched, or they will be difficult to grasp, nor obvious, or they will have no effect’, as Aristotle already noted nearly 2,500 years ago.
Benjamin Santos Genta • How changing the metaphors we use can change the way we think | Aeon Essays
At this moment in the 21st century, we see a new form of extractivism that is well underway: one that reaches into the furthest corners of the biosphere and the deepest layers of human cognitive and affective being. Many of the assumptions about human life made by machine learning systems are narrow, normative and laden with error. Yet they are ins... See more
Vladan Joler • Anatomy of an AI System
The power of a good rule — Priya Parker
priyaparker.com
Learning Effectively: Science, Insights and Techniques
Rules for communities that prioritize intention and thoughtfulness. Though mentioned in context of community building, these can be very effective for managing a classroom or learning environment:
An artful rule protects what's precious.
An artful rule draws helpful (and sometimes controversial) distinctions.
Artful rules are shared at the threshold, before anyone enters.
An artful rule thinks three steps ahead of the guest.
An artful rule is culture-creating.
Contrasted with all the oppressive, maybe harmful, apps that you may have on your phone, the Notes app serves as a playful reminder that we’re all just works in progress.
The iPhone’s Notes App Is the Purest Reflection of Our Messy Existence
A sad irony is that the same cognitive bias that makes people ascribe humanity to GPT-3 can cause them to treat actual humans in inhumane ways. Sociocultural linguistics – the study of language in its social and cultural context – shows that assuming an overly tight link between fluent expression and fluent thinking can lead to bias against people ... See more
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) • Mistaking fluent speech for fluent thought
Bad UX research does not stink. Anyone without training can create poor research and the output looks just as convincing to the untrained eye. This is the reason why UX research uniquely feels the push for democratization.