The Ketchup

Today's bird is the Adélie penguin; the subject of today's email, the condiment – both attempts to reference Pittsburgh PA, where I'm in town to speak at a technology and ethics conference at Duquesne University.

I am still very much in recovery mode from Sunday's big event. Nothing on my body appears to be too banged up or broken, and I actually went for a quick run along the Allegheny River this morning. (Well, not "quick." Let's be clear. "Short.")

By "ketchup," I do really mean "catch up," of course. I know I said I was taking a break from sending the newsletter regularly until the new year, but before too much time and too many stories got away from me, I thought I'd share a list of articles that caught my attention – or that should have, if I were actually reading things online. If I'm honest, I've mostly been ignoring the ed-tech and "AI" news and commentary and focusing instead on other races: my marathon, obviously; and of course, my mayor.

I Told You So:

Really, I'm just sending out this newsletter to make sure you read Todd Feathers in Wired: "Parents Fell in Love with Alpha School's Promise. Then They Wanted Out."

"Coursera is just not that into you" – Phil Hill on the new 15% "platform fee" that Coursera will be charging universities as it moves away from selling online college degrees and more solidly into the realm of corporate training. Please let the whole MOOC brouhaha be a reminder to university administrators: you should not outsource the core capacities of your school to technology companies, no matter the buzz around the acronym (MOOC, OPM, AI, etc).

"Higher Ed's rush to adopt AI is about so much more than AI" by Justin Raden

Grammarly has rebranded to "Superhuman" because nothing says "superhuman" like a souped-up spellcheck. And listen, I know no one wants to use "there" "they're" or "their" incorrectly in an important piece of writing and look like a fool. But you needn't use an environmentally destructive technology to do so. That's the real foolishness.

Dave Karpf on "Bill Gates's stunted political vision." Ah, watch the tech billionaires back away from even gesturing meaninglessly at climate goals. It's a death cult.

"How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time" by Will Douglas Heaven.

The Politics of Literacy:

"We Used to Read Things in This Country" by Noah McCormack

"Grokipedia and the Coup Against Reality Itself" by Alejandra Caraballo

"The Case for Whole Books" by Johanna Winant and Dan Sinykin

Jill Barshay talks to Timothy Shanahan about the problems with "leveled reading" – that is, the notion of "just right" reading material for students (something that is now hard-coded into much ed-tech software)

"Kim Kardashian Blames ChatGPT for Failing Law Exams." Ah well.

Ed-Tech is Cop Shit:

Via 404 Media: "ICE Is Using a University Building as a Deportation Office and the University Says It Can't Do Anything About It"

Via The Guardian: "US student handcuffed after AI system apparently mistook bag of chips for gun"

Via TikTok: ICE interrogates high school students and runs their faces through a Palantir database.

Thanks for reading Second Breakfast. I'll be back next week with some thoughts on AI, grief, and the death of education.