Why is #AI useful to pro-actively prepare #learners in a changing world? #skills

Preparing for my talk today at Online Educa Berlin, after a great workshop-filled day yesterday (one of the workshops was on preparing for the 4th industrial revolution guided by Gilly Salmon - https://www.gillysalmon.com/presentations.html ) and a wonderfully inspiring and ideas provoking workshop with Bryan Alexander looking at methods to predict parts of the future).

Below you can find my slides for the session at Online Educa Berlin looking at ways that Artificial Intelligence can be used to pro-actively prepare learners for the skills of the future.

It covers the steps we have tackled at InnoEnergy with the skills engine. In the talk I will share our approach, and how this differs from what was previously done. The slides are rather minimal, but if you download the talk, you can look at the notes in the slides to get the full picture.

Building the Skills Engine: our dreams realise the future from Inge de Waard

#OEB_midsummit Surviving Digital Darwinism Tony Driscoll @wadatripp #corporate

Tony Driscoll – with nicely trimmed beard and liking jeans – takes the stage and starts with a bit of personal history, and how teaching was in his generational history. Full slide deck can be found below (fab drawings to support the message)

Why the future does not need us’ was an article that changed Tony’s life. He realized then that he was a techno positivist, but what would happen when something does not turn out positively, what really goes on in this intersection with technology. What will the technological effect be for current children, and what can we do in order to make them ready for the future.

Time is always part of the derivative for the rate of change, and distance and jerk. We know what velocity is, acceleration, but we do not know what jerk is (acceleration over time). Technology is currently jerking humanity around. So, the humans built a tech neural system that absorbs humans and defines how we interact and are connected. We – the humans – need to process more now than ever before, and our minds can no longer keep on top of this. The speed of life is increased, where wave upon wave of disruption by tech is coming and humans are not equipped for this. We have an inability to see catastrophy coming. For kids of today the tech disruptiveness will be even higher than in our lifetime, or the lifetime of our grandparents.

Business value progression and structural lag: so companies are catching up to create value in the market space. If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside the end is near – Jack Welch. The average age of companies is now 18 years, and it is decreasing.

Leveraging technology to achieve active and instant reactions.

Tony’s fear is that he and his sons is flying into a jerk hole.

Scenario’s:

Positive scenario: technology does not have a conscious, it just accelerates human fulfillment, the fly wheel of tech synchronise to open new frontiers for everybody. Empowerment for everyone, and all humans can live a happy life. But hope is not a strategy.

Enslaved scenario: tech limits the fulfillment in human identity. We reduce human dreams to fit the current form of the tech options. Always go to the always on answer box: google. At highest level it dums us down to IT laborers so we are back to a digital enslaving scenario.

Enmeshed scenario: post-human: implants, living longer, downloading emotions into a virtual environment to live longer or forever. But question is will this life be fulfilled, and are we willing to give up our unique human identity.

Worst scenario: extinguished: tech accelerates to a point where humans are no longer here. Tech is the next evolution.

But how can we prepare our kids for either the enslaved or the enmeshed trajectory.

Learning from experience: a story about a lost colony is shared with humor (uses superposition of old and new society) and at the end a question, resulting in the message: we need to unlearn and we must change learning.

We need to train people to figure it out (generative learning), collaborative learning, authentic learning, doing and learning, virtual ecologies, learner centered… quoting Jay Cross: optimizing our networks (internet and human).

[Inge, he uses a personal storyline to bring across a message that can be delivered in a multitude of options]

Surviving Digital Darwinism from tonyodriscoll

PRiME on #posthumanism and the ethics of resilience by David Roden #future

PRiME on posthumanism and the ethics of resilience by David Roden. The talk has two aims: views on posthumanism (situating his own position), and explore concepts on where resilience fits in with posthumanism. Wrote a book on posthuman life published in 2014. 

Critical posthumansim and speculative posthumanism

Critical posthumanism rejects the anthropocentrism of modern philosophy and intellectual life
Speculative posthumanism opposes human-centric thinking about the long-run implications of modern technology

Sampling the diversity of posthumanism: Derida (the subject of human – writing – is part of the world). Every subject is connected or related to the system, never simple source of agency, it involves other agencies.

Human as it stands in our subjective or real world. According to Harmon the big aberration of modern western philosophy is to be focusing on the relation of the human being in the world. So our idea of the world is the world as seen by a human subject, as such it is reduced to a single object.

So where are we if we think of the world as not a human given world?

Refers to How we became post-human: the impact of modern cybernetics and post-war sci-Fi and our conception of the human (Katherine Hayles). The human subject is never autonomous of the rest of the environment, and very politically narrow view of the human subject.

James Ladyman and John Ross: philosophical naturalism if we want to find out about the world, we need to investigate the world empirically. Questioning the centrality of the human subject.

David is interested in what comes after the human, the post-human? Wide descendants of current humans could cease to be human by virtue of a history of technological alteration. Speculative posthumanism.

With wide descendants of humans, David means that we cannot make a simplistic distinction between biological humans and non-biological humans. All of these are part of the total environment, so in a sense one could say that a socio-technical network can also be seen as human (e.g. a ship, for it is build and used in a wider sense by humans).  Post-human succession would be more than human, the wide human is an assemblage of both narrowly and widely human. This means that the disconnection thesis something becomes human when it has ceased to belong to the wide human as a result of a technical alteration. Or if it is a wide human descendant of a posthuman. So as soon as a robot can act autonomously from a human, it becomes a disconnect from the wide human.

To take home: how does this relate to resilience. The ecological resilience is being able to adapt to changes in the environment. Adapt to contingencies as they arise. Anything that is a posthuman has got to be an agent of some kind. Our moral concern is that something that we make can discover their own morals, their own values. Ecological resilience is a form of autonomous adaptation, sometimes in cooperation with other entities.  From an ethics points of view, it can be that resilience leads to hypermodernity that is continues functionally augmented, changing. This means we need to qualify the concept of resilience, otherwise we do not know what we are committing ourselves to from a posthuman perspective. This means there is something problematic to resilience and posthuman… but no answer yet.

Question: relationship between ethics and resilience: you could say tuberculosis is resilient as it adapts, similar computer virus that sustains itself could be resilience. In what circumstances is resilience good or bad, and how can we link this to a human point of view? Answer: at a theoretical level it is not possible to do this. The only way to see what is bad or good, would be to actually make it… which also means that responsibility and accountability comes into the equation. This also applies to other resilient options we are making.

Question: educational and psychological resilience can be varied, but there is a similarity to the term (resilience) is used, I am wondering if looking at other definitions of perspectives can be helpful. But how can we look from a non-human perspective, as we are humans? Answer: yes, resilience is a posthuman notion in which no entity is privileged, and we need to take all of these into consideration. ( no answer to second part of question)

Question: focus on technology and environment, but can contemporary concerns can also be linked to the past, the spiritual dimension and the supernatural dimension. That seems to me as non-human. Is this different, or are we in a different phase? Answer: one of the follow-up of melomancer, uses voodoo, so maybe there is a cross-over between posthuman discourse and the spiritual realm. We are surrounded by software entities that are making decisions autonomously from us, so in a way it is happening, and we do not know what the effect is on our environment. 

Question: consciousness an element of being human, that is something that can make the distinction. Answer: there is an important factor to consciousness, but do we know what that is? If not than it is not an option to use. Apart from animals having consciousness. Having consciousness does not tell us what consciousness is. compare it to swarm intelligence versus consciousness. 

Other ideas: systems thinking in all these cases, triage affecting reactions in terms of emergencies. A system that keeps itself in a working condition, these systems can only be maintained of all elements are kept active. 

PRiME workshop on PostHumanism and Resilience thinking robots @OUUK @robotics

Today I have the pleasure of attending the Posthuman Resilience in Major Emergencies (PRiME) networking event organised by the OU, UK. This is definitely a timely event as it launches a constructive idea exchange with regard to what we need to think about to enable societies to be resilient in case of major emergencies (natural and human disasters affecting small to big regions). The main aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers and stakeholders from a variety of fields within the future technologies area.

The workshop focuses on emergency situations, particularly in major events and disasters, which in today’s connected world require sophisticated responses involving extraordinarily close collaboration between humans and technologies. The concept of resilience has been identified as encapsulating a highly desirable characteristic of both humans and technologies in these settings. Although resilience has been the subject of extensive research in various academic and technical domains, it needs to be thoroughly re-examined in relation to the prospect of a post-human future, e.g. in 50 to 100 years, in which human capacities may be manipulated and radically enhanced. If you are interested in this challenge and have relevant ideas or expertise, you are invited to join us in our upcoming workshop where the concept of resilience will be a core aspect.

A posthuman approach to resilience might analyse networks of which humans are only a part, or assemblages composed entirely of non-humans. It may involve applying abstract concepts of resilience to humans and nonhumans alike; or "pluralizing" the concept to acknowledge different ways in which things or subjects can exhibit resilience. It may explore the contribution of nonhuman actors to forms of stability traditionally viewed in human terms, or seek greater recognition of diverse interests in being resilient.

The day is filled mostly by 30 min keynotes on posthumanism, resilience, human-machine interaction, communication, and robot technology.

Some first thoughts picked up while liveblogging:

Resilience some info (came in a bit after start of first keynote, train travel).

From Mars exploration, space technologies, self-riding rovers and cars. No external location info.

Use AL mapping area and computer vision & cameras. Mapping the world in 3D, mapping where the rover is, and than plan.

Energy is limited: solar power in combination with battery. Autonomous sensors will use battery power, the more watt’s used, the less energy for moving around. Sometimes cheap sensors can be used, but sometimes (e.g. challenges met) more expensive sensors need to be used. So what I tried is modeling the terrain and looking at which type of sensors can be used. Where the software is going to calculate which sensors can be used in terms of energy investment. Anyway mapping the way as it is explored. In a GPS void environment some mapping and exploration can be one, with additional energy saved. But mapping has it limits as the exact photograph taken will provide detailed information, but as soon as the video angle is different, different information will be given. So, how can different pictures ensure accurate information, build from different sensors. The mars technology is now used in tunnels, surveying tunnels and mapping them. VR, AR tech coming from the 3D models sent out from the tunnels, decreasing the risk for humans. But a major challenge is the data coming out of these 3D models. Too much information to calculate. Deep learning is an option, fueled by theoretical information, and lots of gaming industry feedback. Steep and rapid change, every 6 months giant leaps forward. Using AI to augment, improve and replace human actors. Current state of the art is changing so rapidly, that it exceeds information coming out (papers, tech…). Up to 2010 error rates were high, with deep learning, the errors have come down, and very complex images the machines are classifying better than human beings are doing; this can be used for any visual analysis at the moment and be used to looking for information of interest.

Autonomous robotic for surveillance, that way minimize risk for humans and visualise or provide detailed information, plus dealing with problem of lots of data. 

Another big problem is the human-machine interaction, as the technology (now) does not understand the human communication. The interface to communicate with human/machine. 

(inge: makes me think off a lot of internet of things problems revolving on energy versus tech action. )

Future of Education: merging quantified, qualified & connected Self #telepathy #telekinesis #quantifiedself

The people from the European Multiple MOOC Aggregator (EMMA) asked me to contribute my view on the Future of Education. So I recorded a talking head video (added below the slide deck), and accompanied it with a slide deck. In this This video proposes the Future of Education as the realization of human telekinesis and telepathy as a result of merging the quantified, qualified, and connected self. By reaching a telekinetic and telepathic state of mind, more time is left to dedicate to each of our personal learning goals. But in order to reach this connected state we must provide more curated content (like MOOCs), achieve a better understanding of how the mind works, and promote open access and open data. The video also offers two possible assignments.

  

Future of education for EMMA MOOC from Inge de Waard

And here is the full video:

#OEB15 liveblog Future workers and the future

On this last day at online educa berlin, these are my notes from the keynote with Cornelia Daheim, John Higgins, Ioannis Angelis on the topic of future and future work(ers). 

Work or jobs or employment… paradigm shift in work. We all earn our living, with a variety of different models, but the classic work traject of school, job, retirement will be less frequently happening.

Cornelia Daheim

Future of critical future topics, specifically work – non-profit organisation

About 50% are at risk of being automated, since that oxford published report people looked at which type of jobs would might disappear.

We have a high possibility that work in the future will be: we do not have to work. So not in the terminology that we have today.

Experts (who? Conservative professionals) technology will drive change: AI, robotics, analytics…

AI where machines can learn to learn, which affects the face of work.

Industry4.0, but how will this shift affect knowledge.

There is a chance of 25% of 2050… but we might get into a new society, where more machines do the jobs, and a such we need to make a new system.

We need to find a new way of how society can function in the long run when the model is not based on jobs/income.

We need to start thinking about it.

She looked at predictions of 2030. If there is no a major breaks (war…) and demographic evolution continues. If we extrapolate these changes, people might live longer, but this means that you work in a 4 generation team (which is really new). A new way of generations working together. The same is true for more freelance, project oriented work, more international… so here are the new forms that come into play. We need to use new terminology for this new era.

The studies show us that there is a possibility for radical change, but even if we simply extrapolate we already get multiple challenges.

What are the new skills needed

John Higgins

Discovered that in 1831 (Peel) he mused that we might prefer that brittain stays a country of cotton fields, but we will be a land of cotton mills. This is representative for current age, one of the interesting pieces of data: cognitive robotics, AI, but also basic connected things (internet of things)… wave of new technologies, and looking at EU adoption of these technologies, only a limited amount of companies (50%) is picking this up.

It seems to me that the pressure is on to start using all these tools to move with the drive pushed by technology.

He does not buy the idea of hollowing out jobs. There is an interesting piece of McKinsey report that all jobs will need to be able to use parts of these technologies, and will be improved by these sort of jobs. (eg; exo-skeletons to carry objects and/or people – nursing, car assembly)

What sort of skills are companies looking for: three main one’s:

Analytical data driven reasoning: identify different sources of information, and be analytical about them (numerical mostly, draw conclusions from big data)

Not following processes, but understanding the goal of an organisation (details change too quickly, so goal-oriented thinking is preferred).  Curation: how to filter out the massive information you get.

Working in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams: using modern collaborative tools. Eg. The 5 why’s model.

What sort of skills are we going to need? New jobs will appear, so there are changing hard and soft skills that will be needed.

Ioannis Angelis

Our predictions about the future fail frequently as they are built from the presence.

The workplace of the future is significant in this debate. There will be multiple spaces that will offer learning and working spaces. But this means that the virtual reality office will give an immersive experience, which will give us a real feeling of reality. But how will this affect work.

Paradoxical trend that done is better than perfect (in terms of work), so how can technology be used to point people in the right direction.

Digital transformation: two ICT people led the debate: somewhere in that discussion was a topic: we cannot speed innovation down. There are risks: it might endanger us by addiction, tension, virality of data…

Nomad society sees themselves as workers in the future, they can work for anyone anywhere at any time.

We all need to take ownership of our own learning.

Creative adjustment: people will continue to look for the meaning of life, but they will use their own creativity.

We want to be competent and skilful.

Missing in a lot of skill discussions: we all need to be change makers (not project management, but in terms of how we influence humanity). We need to focus on humanity.

Dealing with change is an attitude.

In order to become the worker of your dreams, we all need to slow down.

At the agora, if we take this to the future, the slaves can be replaced by the robots (which to me might sound as some people will not be in society anymore).

  

Aren’t we as workers obstructing the technological drive, as we are unable to change that rapidly? Big systems are extremely slow, but people get happier if they can self-adapt their learning/working.

People resist or adapt to change, which is delivering a balance, but it affects the speed of change or the take up of new options. (inge note: uptake of mobile use). 

#DigiWriMo #Future from humans as micro-brains to Artificial Intelligence (part 2)

In my last post which paralleled neurons with humans, and which drew a parallel between curation and giving rise to new forms of being, I ended with the question what the next step into evolution from curation could be. It seems there are some nice new realisations which might possibly look into this. Enhancing learning into the next era.

While I was looking at another episode of Through the Wormhole (clip a bit further down), on quantifying consciousness (or the math of consciousness), an interesting similarity between the discourse on connected learning or networked learning, and consciousness arose. When I also added the hive mind, or swarm theory to it… all of a sudden I thought: this is a fun parallel if you look at the evolution of learning and plug it into an evolutionary, physics/math perspective.

Community of experts parallel specialized brain regions

I am part of online educators group, and I frequently reflect on what that means. In a way it means that my direct family does not always know what I am doing, I talk, but to them it is often gibberish as they do not have similar backgrounds and interests. On the other hand, because I am a firm believer in educational freedom (and Star Trek Society), I am also only part of that type of online learners. Although I can enter into conversation with people who are more of the powerful

This also means my endeavors and experiments are on the outskirts of the educational powerhouses. Yet, I do find that my research has been picked up by some of these powerhouses (I can see it the data stream, and sometimes in some of my reappearing content which is either attributed, or sometimes is not).

If you take the brain and zoom out, you can see areas of expertise. And within these areas you have very strong connected neurons (like the group of online educators I feel I belong too), and lesser connected neurons (eg. other areas of expertise). In between the brain regions, there are bridges and communication often moves from one region to the other, even on specialized tasks. The same happens if you look at interdisciplinary research, the field experts come together, build bridges, but at the end reinforce the new interdisciplinary knowledge that is assimilated into their own more specialized discipline.

So, looking from outer space, and visualizing the inter-connectivity of field experts, with an overlay of interdisciplinary researchers… what might you get? I would imagine a new type of consciousness will arise. The next evolutionary step. Admittedly, sometimes I feel this could be scary: if we humans are put in isolated spaces because of this (or become fertile fields that grow stem-cells for artificial beings who harvest us…. Mmm, should probably stop reading SciFi), or it feels comfortable, if we humans would be kept as ‘fun organic life’ and we humans were provided with endless leisure time in which we could learn whatever and from whoever (yes, my ideal world there).  

We learn at increasing speed

Each of us who loves learning has the potential to learn at bigger speed than ever before (Internet, MOOC, the shoulders of giants and peers). This results in stronger and more paths to more knowledge. Each one of us that has an interest and a cognitive capacity to use and add to the area of robotics can now do this (mentioned in a previous blogpost) which means the chances of someone in that group of practitioners being able to lift that field into a much higher level of expertise also becomes a reality. 

Then at what level does the next spark of consciousness appear? What level of information must be distributed across a network before it leaps out of the network to become the next level of consciousness?

Calculating Consciousness

When Integrated Information Theory came along (Integrated Information theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory), all of a sudden the mechanisms of consciousness were being quantified (article From the Phenomenology to the Mechanisms of Consciousness: Integrated Information Theory 3.0

http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003588

), Phi (consciousness) became a formula, and all life on earth could be calculated for its amount of consciousness. A thrilling bit of research. The University of Wisconsin has done some pioneering work in that area (to that extend that I had a look at their job applications). In the series of Through the Wormhole,Season 5 Episode 8, they look into making consciousness quantifiable

Moving beyond the human brain

The way each of us evolves throughout life feels natural to us. We know we start out as babies, we then learn the basic human actions throughout our childhood, and eventually – if all goes well – we become adult with a place in society. In a way we know the path of raised consciousness each one of us passes throughout life. But this feeling of knowing how consciousness evolves is of course – up to now – not been reproduced in an artificial setting. We do make impressive progress, but none of us humans knows when the next leap in consciousness, the next leap in cognition will happen with artificial intelligence. We just move forward, and once it does happen we will observe this birth of autonomous artificial intelligence.

Referring to A network of artificial neurons learns to use human language

An interesting step along this way towards autonomous artificial intelligence was recently described in research from the University of Sassari (Italy) and the University of Plymouth (UK) who have developed a cognitive model, made up of two million interconnected artificial neurons, able to learn to communicate using human language starting from a state of 'tabula rasa', only through communication with a human interlocutor. Taking some info from an article in the NeuroscientistNews: The ANNABELL (Artificial Neural Network with Adaptive Behaviour Exploited for Language Learning) and it is described in an article published in PLOS ONE and described in this article.
ANNABELL does not have pre-coded language knowledge; it learns only through communication with a human interlocutor, thanks to two fundamental mechanisms, which are also present in the biological brain: synaptic plasticity and neural gating. Synaptic plasticity is the ability of the connection between two neurons to increase its efficiency when the two neurons are often active simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously. This mechanism is essential for learning and for long-term memory. Neural gating mechanisms are based on the properties of certain neurons (called bistable neurons) to behave as switches that can be turned 'on' or 'off' by a control signal coming from other neurons. When turned on, the bistable neurons transmit the signal from a part of the brain to another, otherwise they block it. The model is able to learn, due to synaptic plasticity, to control the signals that open and close the neural gates, so as to control the flow of information among different areas

How many humans does it take to spark AI?

It could be the start of a future joke, but at present it is something which interests me. Because if the brain sends out electric currents between interconnected neurons, then what happens if humans – working on the same field – connect using the electric currents of the Internet? Something to look forward to. 

(Image credit Bruno Golosio)

#DigiWriMo Curation and Consciousness #Future AI, neurons and humans (part 1)

One afternoon while letting my mind flow freely, it came to me that it is easy to see a parallel between the way humans seem to group together, and the way synapses strengthen each other while creating specialized regions in the brain. A fun analogy. In this blogpost I explore how to move from stem-cells to curated humans, to artificial neurons becoming conscious. Using references to Information Integration Theory, a selection of Through the Wormhole (mathematics of consciousness), and free creative thinking. And always stepping from micro, meta to macro-levels. Warning: this post is longer than usual. And although this week is Working Out Loud week, I am WOL fairly throughout the year, so I thought it would be fun to share Think Out Loud for this DigiWriMo-post.

Stem-cells and learning individualsIt is still amazing to think that we – as humans – come from stem-cells. Cells that can become anything (within the human body). At the start these cells seem similar, at the end they are differentiated, embedded in a web of equals, with bridges and communications to other groups of neurons. This reminds me of how humans evolve within their lifetime evolve from being fairly similar at birth, to being highly specialized depending on their surroundings, context, capacities… and at the end to fade away ready to be replaced with the next best thing (slightly adapted).

From each of our conception we are stem-cells, from their our bodies are formed. Once we are becoming more conscious, we start to filter information and people: we learn from our environment, our parents and peers, and from the guidelines embedded in our culture and the food which we have access to strengthens our physical being. All the while our mind expands, it becomes part of a group of people which we tend to ‘like’ and move towards, or ‘dislike’ and move away from. There is an active movement of us, as individuals to become part of a group which (seems) to fit the idea of where we belong to.

Curation in micro, meta and macro towards consciousnessThis situating of the self within a society (whichever society) can be seen as a curation. I wrote about curation in a previous post on how all of society and learning seems to be the result of some curation. But after having written that post, I got some comments (Laura Gibbs, Geoff Stead) and those comments triggered further reflection. Curation happens on several levels, but it can be simplified to be happening on three levels: micro, meta, and macro-level.

Micro-level: individual selection of each person screening information they come across. E.g. Stephen Downes, with his self-developed (written software) and self-sustained OlDaily/OlWeekly. This newsletter provides insightful information on a variety of open learning related topics (including magazines, individual bloggers, institutional interviews…. Another wonderful individual curation initiative is the selection of books covered and described by Maria Popova in her brain pickings, again solely possible thanks to people supporting her in her writing/blogging endeavors.
Meta-level: social curation (a topic covered to great extent by Julian Stodd) where networks of people in their connected world select information from the group and for the group. A bit like conferences and journals (from formal options), and knowledge clouds created inside of organisations or fields of experts. There are people who manage to deliver a course build upon content that is chosen and organised by learners/participants. I feel that is also part of meta-level curation. Dave Cormier manages to do this with his Rhizo-MOOC, which I guess is one of the most influential MOOCs out there (possibly together with DS106 and one of the MOOC that started the concept: CKK). What Dave manages to achieve is to start from a blank canvas, the MOOC is nothing. The topic will be chosen by the participants, then get populated with information from theses participants, and suddenly the dialogues move towards creating more knowledge within each of the participants, including Dave himself. Why do I feel this is one of the most influencial MOOCs? Because, looking at the vast outputs of that MOOC, the high level of expertise of participants gathered in those yearly MOOCs (with multiple influencial bloggers), it is hard to underestimate the impact of that MOOC on online educators across the world.
Macro-level: this level is being impacted the most by the society in which it is created and institutional symbolic capital, together with its gatekeepers, and accepted cultural norms. Where the micro- and meta-level still have some autonomous freedom, on the macro-level that freedom is becoming increasingly pressured by those in power. In a way each one of us individually adds to this power bastion, due to money being part of the sustainability of the macro-level (eg. Leading research institutes, leading magazines…). Whereas on the micro- and meta-level some autonomy can be kept no matter which societal philosophy is guiding or allowing the Way Forward.

A bit like Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital. Eg. Where people mention an experts/artists name as a way to heighten their own importance (yes, mentioning Bourdieu would be part of that :D But on a macro-level this means that the symbolic capital is also pushed by the gatekeepers (those who are keeping in eye out for maintaining and reproducing power). This means at that level the government and recognized (or established) institutes make the selection of information that will be disseminated.

How does this translate from humans into neurons?As individual neurons, it does not seem to matter at first with whom we connect, but once a communication is set up, those neurons with multiple communications throughout time are being reinforced. A preference of communication is happening, and that repetition is creating stronger bridges between the neurons. On a meta-level, the groups of neurons are specializing, becoming more important for specific tasks (eye sight, feelings, deductions…). Impulses from contexts are influencing the strengths of these connections. (eg. Western society pushing linear thinking, Eastern society emphasizing horizontal thinking).
On a macro-level the full human is becoming apparent. It is no longer the connections of the neurons, but the result of these connections as drivers of the bigger neuron temple: the body and externalized mind of that particular human. The body and mind of us humans is the macro-level of neuron activity, just like our institutions seem to be the drivers of our society.

In search for the spark into consciousness
So I wonder, when does consciousness happen? In a way, I feel, that Rhizo-MOOC has created a higher consciousness in terms of what online education is like. All of its participants have become more than the sum of their parts (in terms of previous knowledge).
Could it be that by putting people together, you have the same effect as putting neurons together. Given a communication is actually happening. I think heightened communication does indeed result in higher consciousness. But if neurons linked together manifest life (or in the above-mentioned paragraph, result in manifesting the human), then what happens if humans are put together for a long period of time, and at such a momentum that they become more and more connected across the globe? Will this evolve into a superhuman or into an artificial intelligence which relies on humans, yet is more than all the humans put together? Maybe even to the extent that we as humans will become just another step into evolution. Redundant once a more accurate, speedy evolutionary step is reached.

In my next post I explore moving from Consciousness into Artificial Intelligence, while comparing communities of people to regions in the brain, "#DigiWriMo #Future from humans as micro-brains to Artificial Intelligence (part 2)"

(Image credit Bruno Golosio)

#AdaLovelaceDay in search of the extended learning body

Most of the people who are passionate about computing know Ada Lovelace. Born 200 years ago (1815) her family background provided a mix of poetry (father) and mathematics (mother). An interesting mix, and I feel a necessary mix for great achievers. Being able to feel the dream-state of creativity, allows a different interpretation of the material, realistic world. I truly believe that there is no great invention without great creative vision, and to me Ada Lovelace had both traits which resulted in a magnificent addition to history, even today. There is a lovely FindingAda blog which celebrates the achievements of women in STEM. And today I loved reading the 40 years in tech FutureLearn blogpost by Shirley Williams.

Ada extending the machine

Going against the odds is not an easy thing. Anyone who is slightly different understands the impact of not being part of the norm. Ada must have known and felt it herself. Nevertheless, she had one big advantage, her interests paralleling passion that she could find close by, she had access to an incredibly professional learning network (admittedly, that would have been a very physical, face-to-face network at the time). It was Ada herself who described her scientific thoughts as ‘poetical science’. But what did she do? Ada managed to translate the operations of a machine, the Analytical Engine. She literally translated the Italian description of the analytical engine, but added her own notes to it: “Sketch of the Analytical Engine, with notes fromthe translator". These notes are the blueprint of computer programming, and moved the machine beyond its mere materialistic capacity, towards a new use. It is this that has fascinated me about Ada (and more people with similar poetic scientific passion).  

Within this day and age STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) is of course still very important (history tends to have waves of interest, so STEM is bound to become less important in future historical era’s). And I love the fact that STEM is stimulated from a gender perspective. But it does make me think about what I feel we are missing, when thinking about Ada Lovelace?

The dysfunctional extended learning body

The best action movies are those where the actor/actress has to come up with new solutions ad hoc. A bit of MacGyver or the A-team… but with more women as heroes. This is what seems to be missing with a lot of algorithms. This: what if we hit a brick wall? Where do we turn next.... That is what I would love to see: more algorithms that can multi-iterate solutions.  The reason why is because of the current dysfunctional learning body I have to live with in my digital world. I would love to see my digital, extended body to be equipped with a more solid network of solutions, allowing me to stay ‘in the flow’ when I am learning. I am looking for the new Ada that solves STEM affordances, translates them ready for use in our extended, learning body.

No matter what I do, I always seem to hit the brick wall of affordances multiple times. Even the more mature technologies can cut me off unexpectedly. Three days ago I was typing along, coding various data sets using DeDoose cloud software to code qualitative data.

Suddenly I felt like my arms dropped off. Physically they did not really disappear, but it felt that way. I was using the internet, wanting to search for something and … the connection broke. I felt like being at a library and suddenly losing the ability to use my arms. I know the library has the books I need (the internets), I even remember what isle to go to (structured search engines)… but I cannot reach them myself. So I did the only thing I could do… stare and hope for my digital arms to reappear again. I had similar experiences when exploring mobile learning, or using mobiles for learning, in the past. Or building mobile apps to be able to connect with digital, cloud-or-file-based content.

Of course coping with an extended, digital body means that multiple factors need to be part of any problem-solving algorithm: time management, what we mean with ‘flow of learning’, what provides the best possible experience of ‘learning flow’ (is it rather staying connected (for instance having an offline library that can step in with some bits when internet fails) or is it working with some sort of latency which can bridge failures in connectivity? Or anything that we can come up with.).

What affordances do we feel as useful? The first PDA was build based on real life experiences of its inventor walking around with a log. Affordances are in many cases ‘that what we find logical, or natural’, but it could be that what we find natural is not natural at all, simply something that works best given its realistic boundaries. What feels natural is not always transparent.

What would Ada do?

What kind of notes would Ada Lovelace add to a description of the extended learning body that we know have? Using social media, multiple (mobile) devices, connecting with people, learning in both formal and informal ways, moving towards an unknown professional future….? What would she come up with? Where does it leave me? How much of an Ada would I like to be (given my own personal boundaries and passions)… Where do we all see each other?

Future of Ed #AI DeepMind computer teaches itself to play Atari 2600 games

How do we see the world when Artificial Intelligence takes over work that we find 'humanly satisfying'? What about game-based learning? Is it really such a game-changer, and if it is, than what do we think about computers teaching themselves to be better (than us humans in these games)? Education might get under pressure, as automation and learning creeps in from the digital world. Will Art be the last job standing? All of these ideas are fine with me, as long as we readjust society to cope with these new, upcoming - and more than often based on learning - realities. Can we rethink our place as humans in this increased technological world, and in such a way that we will all still be able to have a sense of intellectual satisfaction? Or will we get globally depressed once we acknowledge that our brain can be outrun by any improved AI DeepMind next generation computer or algorithm?

DeepMind takes over Atari high scores 
Google's DeepMind is something to be reckoned with, and an technological evolution that will push  us to rethink society (at least, that's what I think). The DeepMind algorithms are very interesting, as they can be seen as self-adjusted learning/teaching algorithms. DeepMind is used in DeepFace in the form of DeepLearning (earlier blogpost on it here), and now DeepMind cracked the teaching/learning code to get better at simple video games (yes, this does relate to the tech teenage movie WarGames, the movie from 1983) as The New Scientist (and others) reported today.

Announcing the next evolutionary step: a tiny baby now, but growing
This is a great breakthrough in technology, but potentially one that can influence learning/teaching and society. First of all, I am all for it. Evolution is needed, especially when looking at the boundaries of humanity (evidence-based research seldom results in other more durable approaches (think climate, hunger relief...), war is still a major driving force although we all know the downsides of it). So in a way, my hope rests in the next phase of existence, which might just be fully digital, with us humans as reservation or zoo kept animals, that are provided toys just like our closest biological sisters and brothers, the apes.

Education as savior to get us from human-biological to computational-digital  
But there is a downside as we are in a transition zone, where AI is not yet capable of taking over, and humans are decreasingly needed. The shift from the biological to the computational needs to be made more pleasant. Allowing people all over the world to be have their little piece of Eden, before the fully computational revolution takes over. Education can help, especially lifelong learning, as this will allow us to re-evaluate which opportunities are still open to us humans, and how (or where) we need to turn to reshape our knowledge, or take on a new identity that will allow us to live a satisfactory life in this transition phase between the human-biological and the computational-digital life. Education would as such no longer need to be job-focused, but more life-focused: sustaining and supporting that which makes us humans feel satisfied, intellectually balanced, good.

Online learning as one of the tools to guide and shape us
Elearning or online learning with multiple devices, across location and time is a good option to re-adjust life to fit these new, upcoming artificial intelligence changes. At best, online content is shaped by cooperatively working on a particular subject. Multimedia files, content, contextualized authentic learning experiences... all of these can be brought together much quicker then ever before, and built by all of us putting our heads together (standing on the shoulders of giants comes to mind). So, in a way, online learning can offer quick responses to new societal changes. Providing new opportunities, new ways of looking at the rapid changes, and at our human identities against the backdrop of a changed, more AI oriented society.

(image source: https://juandomingofarnos.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/inteligencia-coolhunting-la-sabiduria-digital-de-e-learning-inclusivo-educacion-disruptiva/)