Author: Stephen Downes

Sorry about the headline; it’s mostly a bunch of keywords to help it be found when I need it again. The Problem I have an Ubuntu container in a cloud environment managed by Virtuozzo (on Reclaim Cloud). I access it either using the built-in SSH Console or by using ssh

Goodness, I hate working with public and private keys. But that’s the only way to access Reclaim containers by SSH (for SSH file transfer and SSH terminal access). I’m using WinSCP for SFTP access and Powershell for SSH. You have to install OpenSSH in Windows to get it to work.

 I’ve wrestled with the question of whether there can be an ‘artificial intelligence’ over the last few days. The question of course comes down to what we think ‘intelligence’ is, and whether we think it is something unique to humans, or at the very least, something beyond the capacity of

Ben Williamson argues that the 21 arguments he summarizes “demonstrate how AI cannot be considered inevitable, beneficial or transformative in any straightforward way.” Of course, nobody is actually proposing this. Similarly, nobody disagrees that AI “requires public deliberation and ongoing oversight.” It would of course be wrong to speculate on

The secret of my success (assuming that I’ve had both secrets and success) is that I learned to write like a journalist at a relatively early age.  This approach is called the ‘pyramid‘ (or often the ‘inverted pyramid’). It allows me to write first-draft content with a minimum of effort

I often see arguments that show an original bit of text and a close duplicate output by a large language model (LLM) offered as evidence that the neural networks that make up an LLM must store copies of the text they are quoting. Here’s an example from Gary Marcus. In

Saying that AI simply ‘copies’ what it sees is wrong and misleading. It does not help us understand the issue of copyright and AI. AI generates text and images based on what we might call a ‘vocabulary’ and a ‘grammar’, and a discussion of copyright in AI needs to address

  I’ve set up a Cloudron installation – it’s currently costing me about $25 per month ($15 for the Cloudron pro license and another $10 for the web server space). I don’t know whether it will replace everything I’m using and paying for elsewhere but it will certainly replace some

“The kindest person in the room is often the smartest” The Emergent Leader I have a trait I’m not always proud of but seems to be inescapable: I am a leader. Now to be clear: that does not mean that I have any sort of title or authority. True, in

  On reading Evan Prodromou’s post Big Fedi, Small Fedi my response was a glib “I’m happy with small fedi but I’m fine with big fedi too.” But my feelings are rather more nuanced than that. Hence this post. Maybe some definitions first. By ‘fedi’, of course, we refer to

  Make sure you have Powershell version 5.1 or better  Open Powershell, type: $PSVersionTable.PSVersion Install update if you don’t have it: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/install/installing-powershell-on-windows  Make sure you have the SSH service installed Type: ssh If you get an error, install ssh: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/openssh/openssh_install_firstuse?tabs=powershell Create an SSH key (from: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/openssh/openssh_keymanagement) Type: ssh-keygen -t ed25519

Responding to a Reddit thread. I’d obviously what to add a lot more detail if I ever were running for office (though I know people won’t let me ever get close to being in power). It’s important to keep in mind that a Prime Minister’s initiatives and goals are often

“In what substantive ways,” asked Anil Dash, “would this be different than, say, starting a WordPress blog?” He’s responding to this post from Tim Carmody, who in turn is responding to an audio message from Dave Winer. Carmody finds it remarkable that Winer is addressing what is essentially a public

  I was asked today whether I ever considered approaching the topic of online learning from a philosophical perspective. After all, I am by both education and inclination first and foremost a philosopher, so it would make sense that I would be inclined to do this. My first thought, though,

  Background: 60 Minutes did an interview with ‘the Godfather of AI’, Geoffrey Hinton. In response, Gary Marcus wrote a column in which he inserted his own set of responses into the transcript, as though he were a panel participant. Neat idea. So, of course, I’m stealing it, and in

Matt Crosslin reports having missed one of my posts from last fall in which I comment on something he wrote in his blog, and now that he has seen it, he also reports being “a bit confused by it as well.” This post has the objective of making things clearer.

I stored some images in S3 but couldn’t use them; if I tried to follow the link, I would get ‘permission denied’ errors. AWS documentation is a nightmare, so I’m putting the answer here, so I can find it again.  S3 contents are stored in ‘buckets’. Each bucket has a

Sometimes when you follow the instructions to set up a web server (for example, a PeerTube installation, or OnlyOffice installation) they show you how to set up Let’s Encrypt so you can get SSL (ie., so your pages run on secure HTTPS) but not how to make sure the SSL

In response to ‘Why humans can’t trust AI: You don’t know how it works, what it’s going to do or whether it’ll serve your interests‘. There are alien minds among us. Not the little green men of science fiction, but the minds that power the facial recognition in your smartphone,

From: Elon-Pew’s Predicting the Best and Worst of Digital Life By 2035. Stephen Downes, an expert with the Digital Technologies Research Centre of the National Research Council of Canada, wrote, “By 2035 two trends will be evident, which we can characterize as the best and worst of digital life. Neither,