Tipping Ourselves Over
/We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. -Ray Bradbury, born Aug. 22, 1920
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Define Success Upfront
/Before implementing AI solutions, define success upfront: “I insist on quantifiable metrics like time savings, quality improvements, or revenue increases. If we can’t measure it, we can’t prove it worked. This prevents scope creep and ensures we’re solving real problems, not just building cool technology. AI isn’t always the answer, but when it is, we know exactly why we’re using it and what success looks like.” -Claudia Ng in Toward Data Science
The Question
/What is life asking of me?
20 Recent Articles about AI Fakes
/What's behind the TikTok accounts using AI-generated versions of real Latino journalists? – NBC News
Making cash off ‘AI slop’: The surreal business of AI video - The Washington Post
Don’t Believe What AI Told You I Said – The Atlantic
Inside a Network of Fake College Websites Dozens of fake college websites built with or supplemented by generative AI – Inside Higher Ed
Man develops rare condition after ChatGPT query over stopping eating salt – The Guardian
Why A.I. Should Make Parents Rethink Posting Photos of Their Children Online – New York Times
Artificial intelligence as author: Can scientific reviewers recognize GPT-4o-generated manuscripts? – Science Direct
How to spot an AI video? LOL, you can’t. - The Washington Post
Wikipedia Editors Adopt ‘Speedy Deletion’ Policy for AI Slop Articles – 404Media
Fraudulent Scientific Papers Are Rapidly Increasing, Study Finds - New York Times
Volunteers fight to keep ‘AI slop’ off Wikipedia - The Washington Post
AI slop videos are ruining our scrolling - Axios
How journalists can spot and mitigate AI bias - Reuters
AI slop might finally cure our internet addiction - The Atlantic
Dave Barry Is told by AI that he’s dead – Dave Berry
LeBron James Not Happy With AI Videos Showing Him Pregnant - Futurism
Australian lawyer apologizes for AI-generated errors in murder case – ABC News
Age Verification Is Sweeping Gaming. Is It Ready for the Age of AI Fakes? – Wired
AI news videos blur line between real and fake reports – NBC News
Battling deepfakes: How AI threatens democracy and what we can do about it – The Conversation
AI Learning Options
/“In facilitating learning, AI gets us more quickly to the important work (examples might include providing suggestions for how to start researching a topic or possible ways to phrase something). In replacing learning, AI does the important work for us (such as answering exam questions). To these I would add a third category: supplementing learning, the murky middle where AI is used alongside or incorporated into one’s own work (such as providing supporting data or creating an essay outline). Naming this usually unrecognized middle ground is important, because whether AI is helping or harming in these cases will often depend on the context and goals. Managing appropriate forms of AI use will likely be one of our society’s major challenges going forward, in education and elsewhere.” -Chronicle of Higher Ed
An electric charge in words
/The poet W. S. Merwin once said that you know you are writing a poem when a “sequence of words starts giving off what you might describe as a kind of electric charge.” I’ve been thinking about how to place the sort of liveness Merwin describes—the sense of your body as a living circuit that the poem moves through—in a world filling up with noise, marred by misdirection and distraction. When, how, and why do we make room for the miraculous? From moment to moment. In any way we can. Because it is part of the practice of being human. -Joshua Bennett is the Distinguished Chair of the Humanities and a literature professor at MIT writing in The Atlantic
20 Articles about AI & Religion
/How churches use data and AI as engines of surveillance – MIT Tech Review
Chatbot Cheating in Ethics Class – Christianity Today
Missionaries using tech to contact Amazon's Indigenous people – The Week
A Catholic AI app promises answers for the faithful. Can it succeed? – Washington Post
A.I. Griefbots Are Just Our Latest Attempt to Talk to the Dead – New York Times
AI in Church Operations Shifts from Early-Adopter to Mainstream – Ministry Watch
When We Make Intelligence in Our Image - Christianity Today
Pope Leo calls for an ethical AI framework in a message to tech execs gathering at the Vatican - CNN
With the help of AI, Experts say Many of Dead Sea scrolls may be older than thought – The Guardian
AI poses new moral questions. Pope Leo says the Catholic Church has answers. – Washington Post
AI predicted the next pope. Did it get it right? – Science
What the ‘Bhagavad Gita’ can teach us about AI – Fast Company
Catholic leaders recoil from Trump’s pope post – Washington Post
AI poses new moral questions. Pope Leo says the Catholic Church has answers. – Washington Post
Is AI In The Image Of God? – Patheos
AI-generated prof that speaks 80 languages? A divinity school tests the boundaries – CBC
The Ethical Problems With AI Sermons – Patheos
Jesus chatbots are on the rise. A philosopher puts them to the test – The Conversation
Churches face a new spiritual dilemma from algorithms as Americans turn to AI for faith guidance – Milwaukee Independent
ChatGPT in the pulpit: Meet the OKC pastor using AI as a tool in preparing his sermons – The Oklahoman
AI Solutions for Business
/I take a problem-first approach rather than lead with AI solutions. Too many companies want to “do something with AI” without identifying what specific business problem they’re trying to solve, which usually leads to impressive demos that don’t move the needle. -Claudia Ng in Toward Data Science
Track Your Progress
/Keep an account of your personal progress to create an objective record of your momentum toward your goals, as opposed to obsessing over what you haven’t yet achieved. So for example, if you’ve recently started a new job, think each day about the new skills and knowledge you’ve acquired, rather than worrying about what you still don’t know or can’t do. Keep a log of these accomplishments and review it regularly. -Arthur C. Brooks writing in The Atlantic
25 Articles about AI & Legal Issues
/New Bloomberg Law Report Highlights AI and the Impact on the Legal Industry - Bloomberg
California Courts Announce New AI Regulations - National Law Review
Illinois law will punish students using AI for cyberbullying – WAND-TV
Meet the early-adopter judges using AI – MIT Tech Review
Does AI owe you for your small part in creating it? – Axios
The AI Law Professor: When chatbots become senior partners - Reuters
Courts aren't ready for AI-generated evidence - Axios
Trump Says He’s ‘Getting Rid of Woke’ and Dismisses Copyright Concerns in AI Policy Speech – Wired
AI guzzled millions of books without permission. Authors are fighting back. – Washington Post
US authors suing Anthropic can band together in copyright class action, judge rules – Reuters
Law360 mandates reporters use AI “bias” detection on all stories – Harvard’s Nieman Lab
Federal court says copyrighted books are fair use for AI training – Washington Post
Does ownership rights over original scholarship extend to the elements of a single course on AI? – Chronicle of Higher Ed
ChatGPT lawyer? Why small firms need professional-grade AI - Reuters
Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI – Associated Press
Group of high-profile authors sue Microsoft over use of their books in AI training – The Guardian
A federal judge sides with Anthropic in lawsuit over training AI on books without authors’ permission – Tech Crunch
Ethical uses of generative AI in the practice of law - Reuters
Please Do Your Best Not to Appear in the “AI Hallucination Database” – Lowering the Bar
A Legal Database of AI Hallucination Cases – Damien Charlotin
Will America Learn to Love A.I. Slop? - Puck
AI isn’t just entering law offices—it’s challenging the entire legal playbook – Fortune
Concerns and legal issues surrounding AI – Reuters
Australian lawyer apologizes for AI-generated errors in murder case – ABC News
Agentic workflows for legal professionals: A smarter way to work with AI - Reuters
Why Founders are often Forced out of their own Companies
/Not infrequently, those who start a company either decide to leave voluntarily or are forced out. The irony of this: The person who founded the organization is now found to be irrelevant, or even detrimental to it.
From the standpoint of a theory of styles, such an event is neither surprising nor unusual. The styles of thinking that are compatible with rugged entrepreneurship are often not the styles that are compatible with management in a more entrenched and possibly bureaucratic firm. Similarly, different styles may be required for different levels of kinds of responsibility in an organization.
The startup entrepreneur has no lack of ability; if he or she had, the company never would have succeeded in the first place. Rather the individual has a revolutionary spirit that is more suitable to the earlier than the later stages of organizational development. What had worked so well earlier on simply no longer works. If the person cannot be flexible, he or she is likely to find it hard to fit into the organization.
Robert Sternberg, Thinking Styles
Three Ways to Use AI for Teaching
/AI can be used to:
1. Facilitate learning - AI gets us more quickly to the important work
Examples: Providing suggestions for how to start researching a topic,
possible ways to phrase something.
2. Replace learning - AI does the important work for us
Example: answering exam questions
3. Supplement learning - AI is used alongside or incorporated into one’s own work
Examples: providing supporting data, creating an essay outline
Read more at the Chronicle of Higher Ed
18 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism & Media
/Mon, Aug 18 - AI-Driven Authoring Tools
What: You’ll get a first look at authoring tools that blend human expertise with powerful AI-assisted capabilities. From generating multimedia elements to customizing content for different roles, these innovations enable you to keep up with changing learner needs and drive measurable results. Watch these tools in action, connect with industry experts and discover new ways to bring your training to life.
Who: Amanda Kimmel, Account Executive, Scheer IMC; Oliver Nussbaum, Managing Director, imc Express.
When: 11 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Training Industry
Tue, Aug 19 - NPCJI Career Office Hour
What: The National Press Club Journalism Institute supports job-seeking journalists by offering free career workshops every other week to help journalists with all parts of the job search process, from crafting compelling cover letters to utilizing their own network in trying to land new roles. The format of these virtual office hours will vary, focusing on instruction and discussion on topics like job applications, navigating hiring processes, networking, and the psychological toll of the search.
When: 11 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsors: The Journalism Institute at the National Press Club & the Bipartisan Policy Center
Tue, Aug 19 - Immigration Reporting 101
Who: Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, Boston Globe immigration reporter.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: The New England First Amendment Coalition
Tue, Aug 19 - Turn Your Sermons Into Small Group Discussions with a Custom GPT
What: We show you how build a real GPT together that turns sermons into discussion guides. Plus, All-Access Members will get exclusive access to the AI for Church Leaders Small Group GPT.
Who: Kenny Jahng, the Editor-in-Chief of ChurchTechToday.com.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: AI for Church Leaders
Tue, Aug 19 - Rebuilding trust in health reporting while covering misinformation
What: How journalists can break through the noise to rebuild audience trust and better reach communities with their factual reporting. In this webinar, we will share strategies for responsibly covering misinformation without amplifying it and show real newsroom examples of how journalists are helping their communities navigate confusion, fear and doubt in health information.
Who: Karen Ernst, Voices for Vaccines; Stefanie Friedhoff, Director of the Information Futures Lab, Brown U; Tara Haelle, independent science and health journalist; Naseem Miller, The Journalist’s Resource; Lynn Walsh, Assistant Director of Trusting News.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsors: Trusting News & The Journalist’s Resource, a project of Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center
Tue, Aug 19 - News Literacy in Action: Getting Students to Think and Write Like Journalists
What: Build a toolkit that will teach students the process behind standards-based reporting and how to tap into their own narrative nonfiction writing skills.
Who: The News Literacy Project’s Brittney Smith
When: 5 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: News Literacy Project
Wed, Aug 20 - Disability Narrative Webinar Series
What: Our Disability Narrative Webinar Series initiative is designed to empower journalists, storytellers, and advocates with the tools to create accurate, inclusive and impactful narratives about disability.
Who: Katherine Felts, the Minority Veterans of America Training & Education Program Manager.
When: 11:30 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free for members ($30 for nonmembers or $25 for students)
Sponsor: Military Veterans in Journalism
Wed, Aug 20 - Covering immigration and knowing your rights
What: We will walk you through navigating legal issues that may arise during the course of covering immigration enforcement and the Trump administration's mass deportation program. We will also explaining some of the tools that the press and the public can use to monitor the government’s actions.
Who: Jennifer Nelson, senior attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free for members
Sponsor: IRE (Investigative Reporters & Editors)
Wed, Aug 20 - The “Big Beautiful Bill”: What it means for family benefits and housing
What: We’ll break down key provisions in the new law affecting housing policy and benefits for families -- two issues that impact millions of readers and viewers nationwide. We’ll cover what the law means for the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, the popular child tax credit claimed by millions of taxpayers every year, as well as the new $6,000 deduction for seniors and the newly-created Trump accounts. We’ll discuss how these changes may affect the housing market and working parents. Whether you cover housing specifically or want to better understand policies shaping your audience’s daily lives, this session is for you.
Who: Emerson Sprick Director, Retirement and Labor Policy; Andy Winkler Director, Housing and Infrastructure Project.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsors: The Journalism Institute at the National Press Club & the Bipartisan Policy Center
Wed, Aug 20 - Writing That Works - Helping HR Pros Communicate with Clarity and Credibility
What: You’ll learn how to avoid common writing traps like jargon, legalese, and passive voice — and discover how to make your writing more human-centered and impactful. Whether you’re writing for employees, leaders, or job candidates, you’ll leave with practical tips you can apply right away.
Who: Allison Horak, CPS HR Instructor.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: CPS HR Consulting
Wed, Aug 20 - News Literacy: Practices and Partnerships
What: A webinar designed to support college librarians in integrating news literacy materials into their educational practice. The session will provide a brief overview of key news literacy strategies and explore how they can be applied across disciplinary content.
Who: Amy M. Damico, a Professor of Communication and is Faculty Coordinator of the Endicott Scholars Honors Program; Melissa M. Yang, Ph.D., is a Professor and Faculty Department Lead of Communication. She also advises the Nu Xi chapter of the Lambda Pi Eta Honor Society.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Niche Academy
Wed, Aug 20 - Solutions Journalism in the College Newsroom
What: Student journalists are chasing stories on big issues all the time. How can they report them through a solutions-oriented lens? Advisers will learn the basics of solutions journalism and how to encourage their students to use it to deeply report on issues on campus and beyond.
Who: Ben McNeely, North Carolina State University
When: 5 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: CMA (College Media Association)
Wed, Aug 20 - Media Literacy: How Students Can Develop Essential Skills
What: Perceiving the truth in today’s media landscape has never been more challenging. This webinar will discuss how to help students do it effectively.
Who: Renee Hobbs, Founder and Director of Media Education Lab; Maria De Moya, Information Integrity Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor in Tombras School of Advertising & Public Relations.
When: 8 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsors: Media Education Lab & The League of Women Voters of Tennessee
Thu, Aug 21 - Listening with text-to-speech: Tools to support reading access
What: This workshop will introduce a variety of text-to-speech tools that enable users to listen to written content. Participants will see demonstrations of reading pens, mobile apps, and computer-based tools compatible with Chrome and Microsoft platforms. These technologies can benefit individuals of all ages and abilities, particularly those with dyslexia, ADHD, low vision, slower cognitive processing, or reading comprehension challenges.
When: 8 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Pacer Center
Thu, Aug 21 - AI-powered reach. Mission-driven journalism: How to grow your audience without losing your purpose
What: What you’ll learn: How The Seattle Medium increased organic website traffic by 12% — with fewer resources. The strategy behind a 228% boost in email acquisitions. Why smart automation cut SEO work time by 60%. How AI tools helped expand reach among younger, digital-first audiences. Practical ways to use assistive AI to support — not replace — your journalists. What “AI with soul” looks like inside a mission-driven newsroom
Who: Josiah Scott, Digital and Social Media Manager, Seattle Medium; Josh Brandau, CEO, NOTA; Evan Young, COO, NOTA.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: E&P (Editor & Publisher)
Thu, Aug 21 - Human-Centered Leadership in the Age of AI-Driven Transformation
What: A high-impact panel discussion on how leadership development can be aligned with enterprise transformation strategies. Whether you’re overseeing digital transformation, leading enterprise learning, or evolving your leadership strategy, this session will provide forward-looking insights and actionable strategies to ensure your programs — and your leaders — are ready for what’s next.
Who: Leah Clark Practice Lead, Leadership, GP Strategies; Cara Halter Senior Director of Global Learning Innovation, GP Strategies; Farnaz Ronaghi Co-Founder and CTO, NovoEd; Richard Caccavale VP of Marketing, NovoEd.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: NovoEd
Thu, Aug 21 - From Classrooms to Careers: How Schools and Districts Can Prepare Students for a Changing Workforce
What: In this webinar, leaders from Alton High School (IL) and TNTP will share how they updated their CTE programs through a community-driven process. This partnership led to the creation of five STEM pathways aligned with local industry needs and student interests—positioning every student to explore careers, gain hands-on experience, and graduate ready for the future.
Who: Elaine Kane Superintendent, Alton Community School District (IL); Sarah Adams Partner, TNTP; Rusty Ingram Metro East Director of Operations and Support Services, Alton Memorial Hospital, BJC HealthCare; Mahnaz Charania Chief of Transformation, TNTP.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: The New Teacher Project
Thu, Aug 21 - From Prompt Injection to Agentic AI: The New Frontier of Cyber Threats
What: We will unpack the rise of AI-driven threats—from prompt injection and underground LLMs like WormGPT to the emergence of agentic AI. Discover how attackers are using AI to accelerate malware development, exploit vulnerabilities within minutes, and even coordinate agent-to-agent operations. The discussion also explores nation-state cyber activity, vibe hacking, and why defending against AI-powered threats will require AI itself.
Who: Pascal Geenens, Director of Threat Intelligence, Radware; Richard Stiennon, Industry Analyst and Chief Research Analyst, IT-Harvest.
When: 10 pm, PDT
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsors: Radware & The Security Strategist Podcast
Our Greatest Dare
/Sometimes our first and greatest dare is asking for support. -Brené Brown
13 Things People are Trying to Get AI to Do
/How NASA Is Testing AI to Make Earth-Observing Satellites Smarter - NASA
AI Can Make You Laugh. But Can It Ever Be Truly Humorous? - Undark
Can large language models do accounting? Evaluating LLMs on real long-horizon complex business tasks - Penrose
Tech companies have promised that AI will make our computers easier to use. That hasn’t happened – The Atlantic
Can A.I. Quicken the Pace of Math Discovery? – New York Times
Anthropic’s Claude AI became a terrible business owner in experiment that got 'weird' - TechCrunch
New tiny robots promise to fix underground water pipe leakage without excavation – Interesting Engineering
A.I. Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally. - New York Times
Mathematical Beauty, Truth and Proof in the Age of AI – Quanta Magazine
AI agents bring big risks and rewards for daring early adopters - Zdnet
Mattel, OpenAI Ink Deal to Power Toy Innovation – Toy Book
The US military is planning to use AI-powered machine guns to counter drone attacks – First Post
CS Grads Struggle to Find Work
/“I just graduated with a computer science degree from Purdue, and the only company that has called me for an interview is Chipotle.” Since graduating in 2023, a CS major from Oregon State says he has applied for 5,762 tech jobs. His diligence has resulted in 13 job interviews but no full-time job offers.” -New York Times
Refuting the Truth
/Say rather, beloved Agathan, that you cannot refute the truth: for Socrates is easily refuted -Socrates
AI Definitions: Context Engineering
/Context Engineering – Broader than prompt engineering, context engineering has been described as the art of providing all the context needed for a task to be solved by an LLM. Rather than a single prompt, context engineering is everything the model sees before it generates a response. Instead of a string, it’s a system. Providing a proper context is particularly critical for AI Agents to succeed, even more important than then quality of the model and algorithm.
More AI definitions here
Stifling my Soul
/In some situations, I am rewarded for being willing to stifle my soul. -Parker Palmer
How Students are Using AI: Here's what the Data Tell Us
/AI use by students is increasing.
The higher the education level, the more likely that students will use AI.
Business, STEM, and social-science majors are more likely to use AI and are less likely to have concerns about using it than humanities majors.
Top uses by students: information or getting explanations (50-70 percent of respondents in the studies cited above); generating ideas or brainstorming (40-50 percent); and writing support, including checking grammar, editing, starting a paper, and drafting an essay (30-50 percent).
86 percent of students who use ChatGPT for assignments say their use was undetected.
A plurality of students think AI will have both positive and negative consequences.
A study of high-school students conducted before and after AI became mainstream found no increase in the percentage of students who cheat.
15-25 percent of students across several studies feel AI should not be allowed at all in education or refuse to use it themselves.
In a survey asking students why they use AI, the strongest agreement was with the statement that AI “will not judge me” followed by anonymity.
Four out of five students think their institutions have not integrated AI sufficiently.
55 percent of students think overreliance on AI in teaching decreases the value received from a course.
89 percent are worried about AI grading.
Students think AI is important, in other words, but not that it should replace professors.
Read more in The Chronicle of Higher Ed