9,072 research outputs found
The Language Labyrinth: Constructive Critique on the Terminology Used in the AI Discourse
In the interdisciplinary field of artificial intelligence (AI) the problem of
clear terminology is especially momentous. This paper claims, that AI debates
are still characterised by a lack of critical distance to metaphors like
'training', 'learning' or 'deciding'. As consequence, reflections regarding
responsibility or potential use-cases are greatly distorted. Yet, if relevant
decision-makers are convinced that AI can develop an 'understanding' or
properly 'interpret' issues, its regular use for sensitive tasks like deciding
about social benefits or judging court cases looms. The chapter argues its
claim by analysing central notions of the AI debate and tries to contribute by
proposing more fitting terminology and hereby enabling more fruitful debates.
It is a conceptual work at the intersection of critical computer science and
philosophy of language.Comment: 16 page
Vesper: A Compact and Effective Pretrained Model for Speech Emotion Recognition
This paper presents a paradigm that adapts general large-scale pretrained
models (PTMs) to speech emotion recognition task. Although PTMs shed new light
on artificial general intelligence, they are constructed with general tasks in
mind, and thus, their efficacy for specific tasks can be further improved.
Additionally, employing PTMs in practical applications can be challenging due
to their considerable size. Above limitations spawn another research direction,
namely, optimizing large-scale PTMs for specific tasks to generate
task-specific PTMs that are both compact and effective. In this paper, we focus
on the speech emotion recognition task and propose an improved emotion-specific
pretrained encoder called Vesper. Vesper is pretrained on a speech dataset
based on WavLM and takes into account emotional characteristics. To enhance
sensitivity to emotional information, Vesper employs an emotion-guided masking
strategy to identify the regions that need masking. Subsequently, Vesper
employs hierarchical and cross-layer self-supervision to improve its ability to
capture acoustic and semantic representations, both of which are crucial for
emotion recognition. Experimental results on the IEMOCAP, MELD, and CREMA-D
datasets demonstrate that Vesper with 4 layers outperforms WavLM Base with 12
layers, and the performance of Vesper with 12 layers surpasses that of WavLM
Large with 24 layers.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 8 table
International Comparative Perspectives on Religion and Education
This book scrutinises religion in education in ten countries. It reveals much about the tension between religion and education in secular countries, and the blending between religion and education in religious countries, such as Iran and Malaysia, as well as secular countries such as the Netherlands. It also shows the important role the church currently plays in education in developing countries, such as Tanzania
A Discourse-Analytic Approach to the Study of Information Disorders: How Online Communities Legitimate Social Bonds When Communing Around Misinformation and Disinformation
Information disorders have become prevalent concerns in current social media research. This thesis is focused on the interpersonal dimension of information disorders, in other words, how we can trace, through linguistic and multimodal analysis, the social bonding that occurs when online communities commune around misinformation and disinformation, and how these social bonds are legitimated to enhance perceived credibility. Social bonding in this thesis refers to a social semiotic perspective on the shared values that communities use to construe alignment with others. False information can spread when groups have a shared vested interest, and so information disorders need to be elucidated through an investigation of sociality and bonding, rather than via logical points alone. The term ‘information disorder’ encompasses the spectrum of false information ranging from misinformation (misleading content) to disinformation (deliberately false content), and it is within this landscape of information disorders that this thesis emerges. Two key forms of social semiotic discourse analysis were applied to a dataset of YouTube videos (n=30) and comments (n=1500): affiliation (analysis of social bonding) and legitimation (analysis of resources used to construct legitimacy). The dataset constituted two contrasting case studies. The first was non-politically motivated misinformation in the form of an internet hoax leveraging moral panic about children using technologies. The second was politically motivated conspiracy theories relating to the Notre Dame Cathedral fire. The key findings of this thesis include the multimodal congruence of affiliation and legitimation across YouTube videos, the emergence of technological authority as a key legitimation strategy in online discourse, and the notion of textual personae investigating the complex array of identities that engage with information disorders in comment threads. Additionally, six macro-categories were identified regarding communicative strategies derived from comment threads: scepticism, criticism, education and expertise, nationalism, hate speech, and storytelling and conspiracy. This shows not only how information disorders are spread, but also how they can be countered. The method outlined in this thesis can be applied to future interdisciplinary analyses of political propaganda and current global concerns to develop linguistic and multimodal profiles of various communities engaging with information disorders
Artificial Intelligence, Robots, and Philosophy
This book is a collection of all the papers published in the special issue “Artificial Intelligence, Robots, and Philosophy,” Journal of Philosophy of Life, Vol.13, No.1, 2023, pp.1-146. The authors discuss a variety of topics such as science fiction and space ethics, the philosophy of artificial intelligence, the ethics of autonomous agents, and virtuous robots. Through their discussions, readers are able to think deeply about the essence of modern technology and the future of humanity. All papers were invited and completed in spring 2020, though because of the Covid-19 pandemic and other problems, the publication was delayed until this year. I apologize to the authors and potential readers for the delay. I hope that readers will enjoy these arguments on digital technology and its relationship with philosophy. ***
Contents***
Introduction
: Descartes and Artificial Intelligence;
Masahiro Morioka***
Isaac Asimov and the Current State of Space Science Fiction
: In the Light of Space Ethics;
Shin-ichiro Inaba***
Artificial Intelligence and Contemporary Philosophy
: Heidegger, Jonas, and Slime Mold;
Masahiro Morioka***
Implications of Automating Science
: The Possibility of Artificial Creativity and the Future of Science;
Makoto Kureha***
Why Autonomous Agents Should Not Be Built for War;
István Zoltán Zárdai***
Wheat and Pepper
: Interactions Between Technology and Humans;
Minao Kukita***
Clockwork Courage
: A Defense of Virtuous Robots;
Shimpei Okamoto***
Reconstructing Agency from Choice;
Yuko Murakami***
Gushing Prose
: Will Machines Ever be Able to Translate as Badly as
Humans?;
Rossa Ó Muireartaigh**
More Than Machines?
We know that robots are just machines. Why then do we often talk about them as if they were alive? Laura Voss explores this fascinating phenomenon, providing a rich insight into practices of animacy (and inanimacy) attribution to robot technology: from science-fiction to robotics R&D, from science communication to media discourse, and from the theoretical perspectives of STS to the cognitive sciences. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, and backed by a wealth of empirical material, Voss shows how scientists, engineers, journalists - and everyone else - can face the challenge of robot technology appearing »a little bit alive« with a reflexive and yet pragmatic stance
Latino and/or Hispanic Male Leaders in Community Colleges in Texas: A Narrative Study
This study aimed to understand the factors influencing the leadership development of Latino and/or Hispanic male leaders serving in Texas community colleges. As the Latino and/or Hispanic population continues to grow, understanding the experiences from middle school to college is critical to gleaning insights into the factors that influence the development of Latino and/or Hispanic male leaders. Using a narrative life span approach to leadership development, the study provided themes regarding the critical factors impacting leadership development across the life span of the participants. Through life stories, the study’s findings described and illustrated key factors that influenced leadership development for the participants. Through the thematic analysis process, three prominent themes emerged as the most influential factors in leadership development, (1) relationships, (2) regional culture, and (3) socioeconomics. Subthemes included (1a) personal, (1b) professional, and (2a) border towns and other regions of Texas, (2b) language, (2c) discrimination, and (3a) education. Three key conclusions included (1) relationships, and regional cultural experiences represent critical life span factors influencing leadership development, (2) socioeconomics represents the influences on educational experiences, and (3) experiences of discrimination represent critical factors influencing leadership practices. Further, this study contributes to the scholarly literature on community college leadership by expanding the understanding of experiences for Latino and/or Hispanic male leaders in community colleges in Texas.
Keywords: Latino and/or Hispanic male leaders (LHMLs), community colleges, leadership development, life spa
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