Some meditations on Advanced Programming

circulated privatelyComputer Scienc

Practicing at Home: Computers, Pianos, and Cultural Capital

Part of the Volume on Digital Young, Innovation, and the Unexpected Bourdieu focused attention on the role of education and the influence of status distinctions on the selection and valorization of particular forms of cultural capital. Although Bourdieu did not write about digital media, he was a keen observer of status distinctions in education and how these translate into job markets. Through an extended analogy between learning the piano and learning the computer, I demonstrate Bourdieu's relevance for an expanded vision of digital literacy -- one that would forefront the material and social inequalities in U.S. domestic Internet access and in public education. High Tech High School, supported by the Gates Foundation, provides a case of why it is important to examine current digital pedagogy in terms of unarticulated and implicit models of entrepreneurial labor, both because these set up unrealistic expectations and because they can express corporate norms rather than critical pedagogy

Poly-strengths Skill Building for Urban Teens at High-risk for Violence Exposure: Leveraging Community After-school Programs to Promote Youth

Violence exposure increases teens’ risk for emotion dysregulation, anxiety, depression, and aggression towards peers. Urban teens are disproportionately more likely to be exposed to violence and less likely to receive mental health services. Community after-school programs can help to reduce these disparities by offering opportunities for skills development and mental health promotion to mitigate risk associated with violence exposure. The current study examined the implementation and promise of brief meditation and sleep health journaling activities infused within a pre-existing parks-based after-school program for black and Latinx teens. Data include pre-/post-measures of violent and non-violent adversity, emotion regulation, anxiety, depression, and self-efficacy to manage peer conflict. Teens also completed anonymous feedback forms after each activity. Teens with more violence exposure at time 1 reported reductions in anxiety at time 2. Teens with more overall adversity reported reductions in anxiety and improvements in self-efficacy to resolve peer conflict. Strong evidence for fidelity and teen enthusiasm (adherence, utility, and generalizability) were found. Overall, findings indicate poly-strengths training may be infused within community after-school programs to promote resilience among urban teens at high-risk for violence exposure

an introduction to the history of European computer science and technology

(essays and documents

Provably safe systems: the only path to controllable AGI

We describe a path to humanity safely thriving with powerful Artificial General Intelligences (AGIs) by building them to provably satisfy human-specified requirements. We argue that this will soon be technically feasible using advanced AI for formal verification and mechanistic interpretability. We further argue that it is the only path which guarantees safe controlled AGI. We end with a list of challenge problems whose solution would contribute to this positive outcome and invite readers to join in this work.Comment: 17 page