Less and More
/Talk less, say more.
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
11 Interesting Quotes about AI & Academic Research
/Our findings suggest that AI tools are not yet ready to take on the task of editing academic papers without extensive human intervention to generate useful prompts, evaluate the output, and manage the practicalities. - Science Editor
If AI-generated papers flood the scientific literature, future AI systems may be trained on AI output and undergo model collapse. This means they may become increasingly ineffectual at innovating. - The Conversation
In a set of 300 fake and real scientific papers, the AI-based tool, named 'xFakeSci', detected up to 94 per cent of the fake ones. - Deccan Herald
People will say, I have 100 ideas that I don’t have time for. Get the AI Scientist to do those. - Nature
There are signs that AI evaluations of academic papers could be corrupting the integrity of knowledge production. Up to 17 percent of reviews submitted to prestigious AI conferences in the last year were substantially written by large language models (LLMs), a recent study estimated. - Chronicle of Higher Ed
Google just created a version of its search engine free of all the extra junk it has added over the past decade-plus. All you have to do is add udm=14 to the search URL. - Tedium
It’s possible to switch back to an AI-free search experience. Google has added a new Web tab to its search engine page at the same time as introducing these new AI features. You can configure this kind of web search as the default. - PopSci
In a 2023 Nature survey of more than 1,600 scientists, almost 30% said that they had used generative AI tools to help write (academic) manuscripts. - Nature
The highest-profile research is heavily influenced by cultural forces and career incentives that are not necessarily aligned with the dispassionate pursuit of truth. To get your research published in high-impact journals it helps enormously not to challenge the predominant narrative. Scientific narratives can become entrenched and self-reinforcing. And that’s where we are in climate science. - Chronicle of Higher Ed
How big is science’s fake-paper problem? An unpublished analysis shared with Nature suggests that over the past two decades, more than 400,000 research articles have been published that show strong textual similarities to known studies produced by paper mills. - Nature
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the country's top science institute, on Tuesday published new guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in scientific research, as part of its efforts to improve scientific integrity and reduce research misconduct, such as data fabrication and plagiarism. - Global Times
26 Articles about Politics & AI
/Half of U.S. states seek to crack down on AI in elections – Axios
No people, no problem: AI chatbots predict elections better than humans – Semafor
Sophistication of AI-backed operation targeting senator points to future of deepfake schemes – Associated Press
Half of U.S. states seek to crack down on AI in elections – Axios
Rethinking ‘Checks and Balances’ for the A.I. Age – New York Times
AI Could Still Wreck the Presidential Election – The Atlantic
How A.I., QAnon and Falsehoods Are Reshaping the Presidential Race - New York Times
Uncle Sam wants to know: What can your country do for AI? – Semafor
California lawmakers approve legislation to ban deepfakes, protect workers and regulate AI – ABC News
AI Regulation Is Coming. Fortune 500 Companies Are Bracing for Impact. – Wall Street Journal
Harris will use human Donald Trump stand-ins, not AI, for debate prep – Semafor
Police officers are starting to use AI chatbots to write crime reports. Will they hold up in court? – Associated Press
Breaking Down Global Government Spending on AI – Enterprise AI
How Innovative Is China in AI? – Information Technology & Innovation Foundation
AI researchers call for ‘personhood credentials’ as bots get smarter – Washington Post
How AI-generated memes are changing the 2024 election – NPR
States are writing their own rules for AI in health care - Axios
Political consultant fined $6M for using AI to fake Biden’s voice in robocalls to voters – New York Post
AI enters politics: 3 Pa. House candidates used ChatGPT to shape voters guide responses – Lancaster Online
Israel establishes national expert forum to guide AI policy and regulation – Jerusalem Post
France appoints first AI minister amid political unrest as it aims to become global AI leader – Euro News
Can politicians benefit from claiming real scandals are deep fakes? (video) – CNN
Self-Deception
/The psychologist Ray Hyman has spent most of his life studying the art of deception. Before he entered the halls of science, he worked as a magician and then moved on to mentalism after discovering he could make more money reading palms than performing card tricks. The crazy thing about Hyman’s career as a palm reader is, like many psychics, over time he began to believe he actually did have psychic powers. The people who came to him were so satisfied, so bowled over, he thought he must have a real gift. Subjective validation cuts both ways.
Hyman was using a technique called cold reading where you start with the wide-angle lens of generalities and watch the other person for cues so you can constrict the iris down to what seems like a powerful insight into the other person’s soul. It works because people tend to ignore the little misses and focus on the hits. As he worked his way through college, another mentalist, Stanley Jaks, took Hyman aside and saved him from delusion by asking him to try something new – tell people the opposite of what he believed their palms revealed. The result? They were just as flabbergasted by his abilities, if not more so. Cold reading was powerful, but tossing it aside he was still able to amaze. Hyman realized what he said didn’t matter as long as his presentation was good. The other person was doing all the work, tricking themselves, seeing the general as the specific.
Mediums and palm readers, those who speak for the dead or see into the beyond for cash, depend on subjective validation. Remember, your capacity to fool yourself is greater than the abilities of any conjurer, and conjurers come in many guises. You are a creature impelled to hope. As you attempt to make sense of the world you focus on what falls into place and neglect that which doesn’t fit, and there is so much in life that does not fit.
David McRaney, You are Not so Smart
Wasting Our Love
/We may have a feeling of love for mankind, and this feeling may also be useful in providing us with enough energy to manifest genuine love for a few specific individuals. But genuine love for a relatively few individuals is all that is within our power. To attempt to exceed the limits of our energy is to offer more than we can deliver, and there is a point of no return beyond which an attempt to love all comers becomes fraudulent and harmful to the very ones we desire to assist.
Consequently if we are fortunate enough to be in a position in which many people ask for our attention, we must choose those among them whom we are actually to love. This choice is not easy; it may be excruciatingly painful, as the assumption of godlike power so often is. But it must be made.
Many factors need to be considered, primarily the capacity of a prospective recipient of our love to respond to that love with spiritual growth. It is unquestionable that there are many whose spirits are so locked in behind impenetrable armor that even the greatest efforts to nurture the growth of those spirits are doomed to almost certain failure.
To attempt to love someone who cannot benefit from your love with spiritual growth is to waste your energy, to cast your seed upon arid ground. Genuine love is precious, and those who are capable of genuine love know that their loving must be focused as productively as possible through self-discipline.
M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
26 Articles about the Dangers of AI
/Justice Department Pushes Companies to Consider AI Risks - Wall Street Journal
Could AI Lead to the Escalation of Conflict? PRC Scholars Think So – Lawfare Media
Police officers are starting to use AI chatbots to write crime reports. Will they hold up in court? – Associated Press
Will A.I. Ruin the Planet or Save the Planet? – New York Times
How Experts in China and the United Kingdom View AI Risks and Collaboration – Data Innovation
A booming industry of AI age scanners, aimed at children’s faces - Washington Post
Why AI Risks Are Keeping Board Members Up at Night – Wall Street Journal
Many safety evaluations for AI models have significant limitations – Tech Crunch
There’s no way for humanity to win an AI arms race – Washington Post
Using AI to write a fan letter – NPR
Can machine-learning algorithms distinguish truth from falsehood? – The Atlantic
A.I.’s Insatiable Appetite for Energy – New York Times
Nicolas Cage Says He’s Terrified AI Will "Steal" His Body – Futurism
Researcher Studying Married Men With AI Girlfriends – futurism
A Hacker Stole OpenAI Secrets, Raising Fears That China Could, Too – New York Times
AI is not a magic wand – it has built-in problems that are difficult to fix and can be dangerous – The Conversation
First Came ‘Spam.’ Now, With A.I., We’ve Got ‘Slop’ - New York Times
AI start-up sees thousands of vulnerabilities in popular tools – Washington Post
AI Is Helping Scammers Outsmart You—and Your Bank - Wall Street Journal
AI is exhausting the power grid. Tech firms are seeking a miracle solution. - Washington Post
AI boyfriends from Replika and Nomi are attracting more women – Axios
Opinion: A.I.’s Benefits Outweigh the Risks - New York Times
Google’s AI Search Gives Sites Dire Choice: Share Data or Die – Bloomberg
A booming industry of AI age scanners, aimed at children’s faces - Washington Post
AI's Trust Problem – Harvard Business Review
U.S. Army soldier charged with using AI to create child sexual abuse images – Washington Post
A student built a fusion reactor at home in just 4 weeks using $2,000 and AI - BGR
AI Definitions: Perplexity AI
/Perplexity AI - A good research option among the generative AI tools, it acts like a search engine but includes results from the web (unlike ChatGPT). Automatically shows where the information came from, so it’s more reliable than ChatGPT. Users can specify where they want the information to be drawn from among a few categories such as academic sources or YouTube. Users can also upload documents as sources and ask it to rewrite prompts. It suggests follow-up questions you might not have considered. Less useful for creative writing. In tests, it was better at summarizing passages, providing information on current events and do coding better than other chatbots. Unmatched speed and accuracy in processing millions of data makes it very useful to data scientists for advanced predictive models. Free. Video tutorial here.
More AI definitions here.
18 Articles about AI & Academic Scholarship
/Do AI models produce more original ideas than researchers? - Nature
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats: A Comprehensive SWOT Analysis of AI and Human Expertise in Peer Review – Scholarly Kitchen
How Are AI Chatbots Changing Scientific Publishing? – Science Friday
New academic AI guidelines aim to curb research misconduct – Global Times
Generative AI-assisted Peer Review in Medical Publications: Opportunities Or Trap – JRIM Publications
GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: preempting evidence manipulation – Harvard
AI Editing: Are We There Yet? - Science Editor – Science Editor
AI tool claims 94% accuracy in telling apart fake from real research papers – Deccan Herald
AI firms must play fair when they use academic data in training – Nature
AI Scientists Have a Problem: AI Bots Are Reviewing Their Work ChatGPT – Chronicle of Higher Ed
A list of more than 500 papers with clear evidence of generative AI use - Academ-AI
Is AI my co-author? The ethics of using artificial intelligence in scientific publishing – Taylor & Francis Online
Is ChatGPT a Reliable Ghostwriter? – The Journal of Nuclear Medicine
A new ‘AI scientist’ can write science papers without any human input. Here’s why that’s a problem – The Conversation
Could science be fully automated? A team of machine-learning researchers has now tried. - Nature
How AI tools help students—and their professors—in academic research – Fast Company
AI-Generated Junk Science Research a Growing Problem, Experts Say – PYMNTS
Did a criminal Russian academic paper mill use AI to plagiarize a BYU professor and his student? – Deseret News
Taking on the Day
/Are you taking on the day with conviction, or is the day taking you on and you are just existing? -Melissa Lambert
Literature and Rigid Thinking
/Want someone to get past their rigid thinking and increase their openness? Put a novel in their hands. Canadian researchers say it will help them become more sophisticated thinkers and increase their creativity.
University of Toronto students were asked to read either one of eight short stories or one of eight essays. Afterward, they each filled out a survey to measure the desire for certainty and stability. The short story readers had much lower scores on that test than those who read the essays. The fiction readers showed they needed less order and had more comfort with ambiguity. This was particularly true for participants who already read regularly.
Writing in the Creativity Research Journal, the researchers say, “Exposure to literature may offer a (way for people) to become more likely to open their minds.”
Fiction readers can more easily follow thinking styles that differ from their own—they can feel along with characters they may not even like—gaining a better understanding of the viewpoint.
Read more about the study here.
Stephen Goforth
17 Webinars this Week about AI, Journalism, Podcasts, Design, Elections & More
/Tue, Sept 24 – When Journalists Are Held Hostage
What: Fenster and Kurmasheva will talk about what led to their improper detentions, trials and efforts to free them.
Who: Journalists Danny Fenster and Alsu Kurmasheva were detained, tried and convicted in Myanmar and Russia respectively. Moderating the discussion will be former SPJ President and retired Bloomberg editor Steve Geiman.
When: 9 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Society of Professional Journalists
Tue, Sept 24 – Elements of Data Visualization and Design
What: This session will introduce basic data visualization and design elements based on best practices from current visualization research. Participants will be introduced to a story-based design method that emphasizes the target audience’s information needs to create effective data visualizations. Tools for color, chart selection and accessibility will be presented, and participants will gain practice doing a visualization ‘makeover’.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Research Institute for Public Libraries
Tue, Sept 24 - The Futurist: Training for the AI Age
What: How the AI revolution could impact employees, the economy and education.
Who: Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearning.AI; Raffaella Sadun, professor at Harvard Business School; Matthew Beane, assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
When: 1:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Washington Post, Amazon Web Services
Tue, Sept 24 - Podcasts in Your Learning Solutions
What: In this session, you will learn strategies to design, develop, and publish your own podcast on any budget (even zero).
Who: Betty Dannewitz Founder and CEO, ifyouaskbetty
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Training Magazine Network
Wed, Sept 25 - The AI Generation: A Student Innovation Summit
What: With tech advancements and artificial intelligence on the rise, how will these innovations impact the world in which we live, learn, work and play? At our in-person and virtual summit, NBCU Academy will provide answers to help you leverage your tech and media skills. Talk with experts, meet our recruiters and sign up for career opportunities.
Who: Brian Cheung, NBC News Business Correspondent; Evrod Cassimy, NBC 5 Chicago Reporter & Anchor; Rashida Jones, MSNBC President; Kevin Cross, NBC and Telemundo Chicago President & General Manager; Yvette Miley, NBCUniversal News Group EVP, DEI; Tara Morgan, NBCUniversal Early Career Recruitment Manager; Sandy Sharp, NBCU Academy Senior Director; Byron Slosar, Hello Hive Founder
When: 12 pm – 3:30 pm, Central
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: NBCU Academy & Project UP
Wed, Sept 25 - Navigating Artificial Intelligence: Microsoft Copilot Deep Dive
What: Compare and contrast Microsoft Copilot with ChatGPT, and see how Copilot’s deeper integration with Microsoft 365 applications unlocks unique use cases and enhanced capabilities.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Pennsylvania Small Business Development Center, Widener University
Wed, Sept 25 - How to Attract and Sustain Your Audience’s Attention
What: You'll learn results from Dr. Simon’s recent neuroscience research that uncovers practical guidelines to capture and sustain your audiences’ attention. You'll dig into the scientific principles that convince people to look and learn.
Who: Carmen Simon, Ph.D. Cognitive Neuroscientist, Founder of Enhancive
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Training Magazine Network
Wed, Sept 25 - Owning the Unknown: Teaching and Learning With AI
What: Explore how faculty and staff members, administrators and other players in the postsecondary ecosystem are harnessing AI to support teaching and learning and overall academic success. We'll also take a closer look at how AI could help bring higher education closer to its ultimate promise of greater access, improved student engagement and deeper understanding.
Who: Muhsinah Lateefah Morris, Ph.D. Director of Metaversity & Senior Assistant Professor of Education at Morehouse College; Kathleen Landy, Ed.D. Associate Director, Center for Teaching Innovation at Cornell University; Chris Hess, Ph.D. Director of Product AI Strategy, Higher Education at Pearson.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Inside Higher Ed
Wed, Sept 25 – How HT Media is leveraging GenAI
What: How generative AI has been adopted by the news media industry. He will share roadblocks, bottlenecks, what didn’t work, and what did work. Gain insights into the top use cases where generative AI helped to solve complex challenges.
Who: Yudhvir Mor, chief product officer at HT Media
When: 7:30 pm
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: International News Media Association, HT Media
Thu, Sept 26 - AI in Action: Empowering Production
What: Machines are learning the human voice and can isolate it in ways simple noise filters can’t. In this session, we step up your production with improved audio tools, going beyond waveform editing and new ways to incorporate voices when you don’t have taped interviews.
Who: Zac Ziegler, Arizona Public Media; Bob Caniglia, Director of Sales Operations, Blackmagic Design; Nick Dunkerley, Creative Director, Hindenburg
When: 12:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Public Media Journalists Association
Thu, Sept 26 - Meet The Generative AI Moment With Authentic Learning
What: This one-hour workshop will both provide a high-level explanation of how these tools work, along with insights from colleagues across disciplines at UChicago about how they’ve been approaching this change in the educational landscape.
When: 1:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: University of Chicago
Thu, Sept 26 - Student Journalists’ Legal Guide to Covering Elections
What: Explore your legal rights and responsibilities when covering elections and high-stress situations.
Who: Jennifer Nelson, senior staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsors: The Student Press Law Center and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Thu, Sept 26 - How to Transform Casual Readers into Loyal Supporters
What: An in-depth exploration of the audience funnel, a powerful framework designed to guide your community news business from attracting complete strangers to cultivating loyal, recurring supporters. Whether you’re an individual content creator, or part of a large publishing group, understanding and optimizing your audience funnel is crucial for sustainable growth and financial success.
Who: Elvin Noriega and Wendy Lopez, Indiegraf Experts
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Indiegraf
Thu, Sept 26 - Reframing Media Narratives of Addiction
What: Panelists explore how collaboration with communities during the reporting process can make better and more-accurate stories.
Who: Justin Maxon, photographer, writer, and film maker; Judith Surber, Hoopa Author who Wrote a New York Times Story on Opioid Addiction and wrote Reservation High, a fiction book about native life on the reservation, substance use, and recovery; Jacqueline Bates, photography director of Opinion at The New York Times; Alexandra Sifferlin, health and science editor for The New York Times Opinion desk.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Pulitzer Center
Thu, Sept 26 - How AI Voice Is Changing Learning and Development
What: This webinar will help your team evaluate AI voice technology solutions like text-to-speech, voice cloning, and speech-to-speech. Get ready to take your skills from novice to ninja through an informative and fast-paced session that will give you the foundation to elevate your production skills with this wonderful new technology.
Who: Jeff Howard ,Marketing Manager, WellSaid
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: WellSaid Labs
Thu, Sept 26 - Shifts in Digital Reputation Building
What: This one-hour panel discussion brings together industry leaders to explore the implications of AI-driven search on brand reputation management. This panel will share actionable strategies to stay ahead of the curve in this dynamic environment.
Who: Samantha Stark, Founder Phusion; Brian Snyder, Global President of Digital, Axicom; Caitlin Rourk, Senior Consultant, Corporate Affairs, Dell Technologies; Jeff Davidoff, Chief Marketing Officer, InfluenceAI
When: 4 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Institute for Public Relations
Fri, Sept 27 - Following the Money in the 2024 Elections
What: All of the ways that you can track who is donating to politicians — from the state legislature all the way to the presidential election. Learn tips and tricks for how to get to the bottom of who is trying to buy your vote, and ultimately, who will have a seat at the table when all the votes are counted.
Who: Sarah Bryner, OpenSecrets
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: $35
Sponsor: iMedia Campus
AI Definitions: Supervised training
/Supervised training - In this type of AI training, the data is labeled by humans before giving it to the AI. For example, the AI might be given a database of messages labeled either “spam” or “not spam.” This is the most common type of machine learning. Expensive and time-consuming, this type of training is used in voice recognition, language translation, and self-driving cars. Anything that takes only a second for a person to do is something that might be performed by AI through supervised training. This is why jobs that are a series of one-second tasks are at risk from it (such as security guard). Most of the present economic value of AI comes from this type of training.
More AI definitions here.
Regretting your Choices
/The choices we make are statements to the world about who we are. When all you could do was buy Lee’s or Levi’s, the jeans you bought were not a statement to the world about who you are because there wasn’t enough variety in the jeans you bought to capture the variety of human selves. When there are 2,000 kinds of jeans, or 20,000 kinds of jeans, well, now all of a sudden it is a statement to the world about who you are because there’s so much variety out there. This is true of jeans. It’s true of drinks. It’s true of music videos. It’s true of movies. That makes even trivial decisions seem important, and when that happens, people want the best. We’ve got a bunch of studies that show that large choice sets induce people to regard the choices they make as statements about the self, and that, in turn, induces them to raise their standards.If there are 200, and you buy a pair of jeans that don’t fit you as well as you hoped, now it’s hard to avoid blaming yourself. The only way to avoid regretting a decision is not making it, so I think a lot of the reason people don’t pull the trigger is that they’re so worried that when they do pull the trigger, they’ll regret a choice they made.
Barry Schwartz quoted in Vox
26 free (mostly one hour) Journalism courses
/These short online courses will strengthen your journalism skills (and add a line to your resume). Most of these Poynter courses are one-hour in length or less.
Journalism Fundamentals: Craft & Values - A five-hour, self-directed course that covers basics in five areas: newsgathering, interviewing, ethics, law and diversity.
Telling Stories with Sound - Learn the fundamentals of audio reporting and editing in this self-directed course.
How to Spot Misinformation Online - Learn simple digital literacy skills to outsmart algorithms, detect falsehoods and make decisions based on factual information.
Understanding Title IX - This course is designed to help journalists understand the applications of Title IX.
Clear, Strong Writing for Broadcast Journalism - One-hour video tutorial
Powerful Writing: Leverage Your Video and Sound - In this one-hour video tutorial, early-career journalists will learn how to seamlessly combine audio, video and copy in captivating news packages.
Writing for the Ear - In this five-part course, you’ll learn everything you need to write more effective audio narratives.
Fact-Check It: Digital Tools to Verify Everything Online
News Sense: The Building Blocks of News - What makes an idea or event a news story?
Cleaning Your Copy: Grammar, Style and More - Finding and fixing the most common style, grammar and punctuation errors.
Avoiding Plagiarism and Fabrication
The Writer’s Workbench: 50 Tools You Can Use
Ethics of Journalism Build or refine your process for making ethical decisions
Conducting Interviews that Matter
Make Design More Inclusive: Defeat Unconscious Bias in Visuals
Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Publishers - Three important areas of media law that specifically relate to gathering information and publishing online: defamation, privacy and copyright.
Freedom of Information and Your Right to Know - How to use the Freedom of Information Act, Public Records Laws and Open Meetings Laws to uphold your right to know the government’s actions.
Journalism and Trauma - How traumatic stress affects victims and how to interview trauma victims with compassion and respect.
How Any Journalist Can Earn Trust (International Edition)
What news audiences in various parts of the world don’t understand about how journalism works
Is This Legit? Digital Media Literacy 101
MediaWise’s Campus Correspondents explain the fact-checking tools and techniques that professionals use in their day-to-day work.
How Any Journalist Can Earn Trust
Dignity and Precision in Language
How to Avoid Being Sued: Defamation Law in the 21st Century
Conducting Interviews That Matter
Power of Diverse Voices: Writing Workshop for Journalists of Color
15 Articles about AI’s impact on College Faculty & Administrators
/College Writing Centers Worry AI Could Replace Them - EdSurge
Publication Ethics in the Era of Artificial Intelligence – Journal of Korean Medical Science
The AI Hiring Spree Colleges face stiff competition as they race to build faculties with expertise. – Chronicle of Higher Ed
Los Angeles Unified launches Ed, the nation’s first AI ‘personal assistant’ for students – Ed Source
Why We Should Normalize Open Disclosure of AI Use - Chronicle of Higher Ed
Abstracts Written by Medical Researchers vs Generated by Large Language Models – JAMA Network
AI Will Shake Up Higher Ed. Are Colleges Ready? - Chronicle of Higher Ed
Mary Meeker wants AI and higher education to be partners – Axios
MIT Guide to Responsible use of AI in Higher Education – MIT Sloan Management Review
This University Had an AI Robot as Commencement Speaker. Yes, It Was Weird. - Chronicle of Higher Ed
Thanks to AI, people may no longer feel the need to learn a second language. – The Atlantic
OpenAI announces first partnership with a university – CNBC
How AI Has Begun Changing University Roles, Responsibilities – Inside Higher Ed
Drexel University AI policies – Drexel
A.I. Program Aims to Break Barriers for Female Students – New York Times
How Higher Ed Can Adapt to the Challenges of AI - Chronicle of Higher Ed
when the props are pulled out from under us
/It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand. -Madeleine L'Engle
For Today
/Do what makes you happiest.
Look upon what gives you joy.
Speak to those who warm your heart.
Listen to that which lifts your spirit.
Surround yourself with sights and sounds and people who give you pleasure.
For all the happiness you give to others all year long, give yourself a perfect day.
And then tomorrow, repeat the process.
Mohan Singh
AI Definitions: Reinforcement Learning
/Reinforcement Learning - This type of AI learning sits somewhere in between supervised and unsupervised learning. Rather than being given specific goals, the AI is deployed into an environment where it is allowed to train with minimal feedback. This trial-and-error approach involves adjusting weights until high reward outcomes are reached. Desirable behaviors are rewarded, and undesirable behaviors are punished. It is similar to a person learning how to work through levels of a video game, searching for an effective strategy. Reinforcement learning is indeed used in video game development and has been used to help robots adopt to new environments.
More AI definitions here.
Real Beginnings
/When we are ready to make a new beginning, we will shortly find an opportunity. The same event could be a real new beginning in one situation and an interesting but unproductive by-way in another. The difference is whether the event is “keyed” or “coded” to that transition point, the way that electronic key cards are set to open a particular hotel room door. When the card code matches, the door opens and the whole thing happens as if it were scripted. When it doesn’t match, the event is just an event and you are still in the neutral zone. The neutral zone simply hasn’t finished with you yet.
What isn’t finished is the inner realignment and renewal of energy, both of which depend on your being immersed in the chaos of the neutral zone. It is as though the thing that you call “my life” had to return occasionally to a state of pure energy before it could take anew shape and gain new momentum.
William Bridges, Transitions
12 interesting Quotes about AI Tools and Products
/Is AI the end of search? One CDO says no but look for search to be decentralized. “If I want to know the closest pizza shop, that’s what Google is for, but if I want to understand allergen info for the shop, I need to ask the shop itself” using the shop’s AI. - VentureBeat
Toys “R” Us has released a video ad, one of the first from a major brand that was created almost entirely by generative artificial intelligence. Sora completed 80% to 85% of the work before the agency went in to make slight corrections to the imagery. - Wall Street Journal
A Japanese mega-conglomerate says it's using AI to build what one of its designers called a "mental shield" that manipulates angry customers' voices so that call center employees don't have to deal with drama. Softbank insists it won't change customers' words, but instead will do things like make a shrill, angry voice lower, to become less grating, or else, raise the pitch. - ArsTechnica
We put five of the leading bots through a series of blind tests to determine their usefulness. ChatGPT, didn’t lead the pack. Instead, lesser-known Perplexity was our champ. - Wall Street Journal
There were more images created through AI last year than there were created through lens-based technologies. - Hollywood Reporter
Humane releases widely anticipated Ai Pin—a wearable badge that doubles as an AI-powered smart device. The voice-based, always-connected Ai Pin is the first of what will almost certainly be a long line of products riding the generative AI boon. - Tech Crunch
An innovative voice-cloning technology is making it possible to hear Chief Justice Earl Warren “read” the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision on school desegregation as he did on May 17, 1954, along with oral arguments by lawyers including a future Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall. - Associated Press
A new study “recruited management consultants from Boston Consulting Group.” One of the tasks was to brainstorm about a new type of shoe, sketch a persuasive business plan for making it and write about it persuasively. Some researchers had believed only humans could perform such creative tasks. They were wrong. The consultants who used ChatGPT produced work that independent evaluators rated about 40 percent better on average. In fact, people who simply cut and pasted ChatGPT’s output were rated more highly than colleagues who blended its work with their own thoughts. And the A.I.-assisted consultants were more than 20 percent faster. - The New York Times
AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd, by looking at them just once. - Eureka Alert
A pair of studies looked at how much a person's expectations about AI impacted their likelihood to trust it and take its advice. A strong placebo effect works to shape what people think of a particular AI tool. - Axios
AI can figure out where a photo was taken. This "may help people ID the locations of old snapshots or allow biologists to conduct rapid surveys for invasive plant species—but similar tech could be used for gov. surveillance, corp. tracking or even stalking.” - NPR
A start-up called Perplexity shows what’s possible for a search engine built from scratch with artificial intelligence. Perplexity doesn’t give you back a list of links. Instead, it scours the web for you and uses AI to write a summary of what it finds. One impressive Perplexity feature is ‘Copilot,’ which helps a user narrow down a query by asking clarifying questions. Perplexity also allows users to search within a specific set of sources, such as academic papers, YouTube videos or Reddit posts. - New York Times