Ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Stephen Goforth
“We have started seeing employers saying things like, 'If you have that computer science degree, do you have a philosophy minor so you can help me think about the ethical implications of what I'm building?'” – Aneesh Raman, chief economic opportunity officer at LinkedIn
A group of librarians tested AI search tools for accuracy. Here’s the results:
Read more at The Washington Post
AI Advice for Students
1- Think Beyond Academic Integrity
Not just “Is this cheating or not cheating?”
But also, “Am I taking the opportunity to learn, practice, and cultivate my skills?”
To some students, college now feels like, “How well I can use ChatGPT.” Others describe writing essays as a coordination problem: get the prompt, feed it to the bot, skim the output, add some filler, hit submit. No thinking required, just interface management.
2-Define Your own Educational goals
Ask yourself: “Besides grades, what are my goals as a student?”
Prioritize learning and skill development
Seize opportunities to get the practice you need to become a better thinker, writer, and communicator.
3-Prompt to Challenge your Thinking
Instead of outsourcing your thinking (“Suggest a thesis statement I can use for my essay.”). Look for ways to think critically about the subject (“Ask me tough questions to help me figure out my thesis statement.”).
Don’t just ask, “Am I outsourcing the writing to AI?” Ask, “Am I outsourcing the thinking to AI?” We must use AI to expand our mind’s capacity to engage, rather than using it to outsource our thinking.
4- Focus on AI Literacy & Integration
Unless you want to build AI systems and become a data scientist, focus on taking outdated processes and updating them to make use of the available AI tools. Understanding the benefits and limitations of AI in light of ethics should be the goal, along with figuring out how to mesh it into your workday.
5- Double Down on your Humanity
• We can’t let it strip us of our humanity.
• Optimistically, AI may be “a piece of technology that, instead of replacing humanity, amplifies it.”
• We must retain oversight & not lose ourselves by depending on the machine.
• Doubling down on what makes you human may be what saves you from being replaced or minimized by AI.
6- Get Well-rounded
Be well- rounded in liberal arts: think of your gen ed classes as now core classes. Focus specifically on growing these skills: analytic thinking, creativity, information literature, resilience, agility, leadership, self-motivation, empathy, curiosity. Their value will rise as AI takes over routine tasks.
7- Distinguish between AI-generated content, AI-assisted content, & AI-supplemented content
Group A ❌ Group B ✅ Group C 🤔
AI-generated content AI-assisted content/writing AI-supplement content
Facilitated writing/learning
AI-generated content ❌ is entirely produced by the AI or sections are produced by the AI, based on detailed instructions (prompts) provided by the author. Some AI is best thought of as a set of automation tools that function as closed systems that do their work without oversight—like ATMs and dishwashers.
In academia, it is not acceptable under normal circumstances unless there are significant and clear reason why this was necessary. However, in business, it is likely to be treated as acceptable when the content is merely informational and not intended to be creative. The focus in this situation is accuracy and speed with minimal effort as opposed to authenticity. For instance, a summary of a business meeting or an email answering a particular question about the business, where it is assumed, the writer may incorporate AI-generated content.
Group B ✅ is work that is predominantly written by an individual but has been improved with the aid of AI tools. AI is part of the process. The author remains in control, and the AI merely acts as a polishing tool. As opposed to automation tools, these collaboration tools—like chain saws and word processors. In any given application, AI is going to automate or it’s going to collaborate, depending on how we design it and how someone chooses to use it.
This kind of assistance is generally accepted by most publishers as well as the Committee on Publication Ethics, without the need for formal disclosure. This includes: creating outlines, improving clarity, grammar, summarizing, brainstorming, generating transcription, condensing notes, creating study guides, practice questions, editing, and suggesting alternative approaches to a problem.
Group C 🤔 includes changing phrasing, generating a citation list, revising sentence structure, reducing word count, etc. Writers and publishers disagree about whether using AI in this way is ethical or not.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. -Mark Twain
The question is not whether AI can do things that experts cannot do on their own—it can. Expert humans often bring something that today’s AI models cannot: situational context, tacit knowledge, ethical intuition, emotional intelligence, and the ability to weigh consequences that fall outside the data. The value is not in substituting one expert for another, or in outsourcing fully to the machine, or indeed in presuming the human expertise will always be superior, but in leveraging human and rapidly-evolving machine capabilities to achieve best results. -David Autor and James Manyika writing in The Atlantic
When we spend our lives waiting until we're perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make.
We must walk into the arena, whatever it may be—a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation—with courage and a willingness to engage. Rather than sitting on the sidelines and hurling judgment and advice, we must dare to show up and let ourselves be seen. This is vulnerability. This is daring greatly.
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos. -Mary Shelley (born Aug. 30, 1797)
The trick is, when there is nothing to do, do nothing. -Warren Buffett (born Aug. 30, 1930)
Generative AI is making it exponentially easier for China to create believable, engaging content. GoLaxy — which operates in close alignment with the Chinese government's interests — appears to be tapping generative AI to mine social media profiles and create content that "feels authentic, adapts in real-time and avoids detection. "Documents show that GoLaxy has created profiles for at least 117 members of Congress and over 2,000 American political figures and thought leaders. -Axios
Let me pay you the compliment of being blunt. -From the 1987 movie The Untouchables
"Recent history grads have a lower unemployment rate (4.6 percent) than recent computer science grads (6.1 percent), according to the New York Federal Reserve Bank. History is one of the most popular college majors among congressional staff members, and historians find work in some surprising places, such as the National Security Agency and the American Girl doll company." -Washington Post
Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self. -Mary Sarton
Write the victory speech of your opponent. If you can’t, look again at what you’re asking of them.
If you don’t take steps now to centralize AI strategy, you’ll be left with a patchwork of disconnected tools, uncontrolled costs, and compliance nightmares. The winners in this era won’t be the ones who adopt AI fast, they’ll be the ones who adopt it wisely. Shadow AI isn’t going away; it’s going to accelerate as AI becomes embedded. -Unite AI
AI is already taking jobs away from entry-level workers - Axios
Will historians really be replaced by AI? They remain skeptical. – Washington Post
21 Ways People Are Using A.I. at Work – New York Times
If You’re Trying to Get Into AI, This Is What You Need to Do – KD Nuggets
AI is already displacing these jobs - Axios
Meet your new office bestie: ChatGPT – Business Insider
Labor unions mobilize to challenge advance of algorithms in workplaces - Washington Post
AI Is Forcing the Return of the In-Person Job Interview - Wall Street Journal
These workers don’t fear artificial intelligence. They’re getting degrees in it. - Washington Post
The Bull Market for Economists Is Over. It’s an Ominous Sign for the Economy. - New York Times
AI Is Here, and a Quiet Havoc Has Begun – Wall Street Journal
The next jobs downturn could mean an AI-induced purge of millions of workers - Axios
Whose job is safe from AI? -Tim Harford
SEO Is Dead. Say Hello to GEO – New York Mag
Data Scientists on AI’s chopping block? Microsoft Research sounds a career alarm – Times of India
AI Skills Needed in Many Postgrad Careers—Not Just Tech – Inside Higher Ed
Painters, nursing assistants, and more: Microsoft’s top 10 most AI-safe careers – CNBC
AI is helping students be more independent, but the isolation could be career poison – The Markup
Shadow AI - Generative AI use inside organizations without the approval or supervision of IT. While not typically malicious, it creates risks that can grow over time. For instance, customer data might end up being stored in a third-party AI’s training environment or proprietary code might be copy and pasted into an AI code assistant to debug an issue.
More AI definitions here
It’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
Emily Perl Kingsley
Foreign disinformation enters AI-powered era - Axios
China Turns to A.I. in Information Warfare - New York Times
Illinois blocks AI from being your therapist - Axios
Trump Wasted No Time Derailing His Own AI Plan – The Atlantic
China is betting on a real-world use of AI to challenge U.S. control – Washington Post
Trump’s AI plan calls for more open-sourcing despite China concerns – Semafor
DOGE builds AI tool to cut 50 percent of federal regulations - Washington Post
Trump Says He’s ‘Getting Rid of Woke’ and Dismisses Copyright Concerns in AI Policy Speech – Wired
Trump’s AI plan: Pull back restraints on tech - CNN
White House AI plan focuses on beating China – Axios
China tops the world in artificial intelligence publications, database analysis reveals - Science
Trump’s A.I. Challenge: Focus on World’s Most Dangerous Weapons or Woke-ism? - New York Times
Truth Social’s new AI search engine basically just pushes Fox News – The Verge
The Chatbot Culture Wars Are Here - New York Times
I’m fascinated by how AI could help prevent languages from disappearing entirely. Most TTS development focuses on major languages with massive datasets, but there are over 7,000 languages worldwide, and many are at risk of extinction. What excites me is the potential for AI to create voice synthesis for languages that might only have a few hundred speakers left. This is technology serving humanity and cultural preservation at its best! When a language dies, we lose unique ways of thinking about the world, specific knowledge systems, and cultural memory that can’t be translated. -Claudia Ng writing in Toward Data Science
Your foot is on the gas, professionally. Living by your wits—by your fluid intelligence—you seek the material rewards of success, you attain a lot of them, and you are deeply attached to them. You should be prepared to walk away from these rewards before you feel ready. Even if you’re at the height of your professional prestige, you probably need to scale back your career ambitions in order to scale up your metaphysical ones.
Arthur C. Brooks writing in The Atlantic
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