AI

We shouldn’t need any illusions to understand how generative tools might be useful. This obsession with anthropomorphization hinders our ability to understand what these systems can and cannot do, leaving us with a confused and muddled idea of their capabilities. An LLM’s ability to predict patterns is impressive and quite useful in many contexts, but that doesn't make it conscious.

The post reflects on metaphors used to discuss artificial intelligence, particularly introducing an origami analogy. It emphasises that AI outputs are intricately shaped by the training data like origami models are formed from a single sheet of paper. This analogy reveals insights into AI's limitations, creativity, and the nature of its outputs.

I recently came up with an interesting shortcut that writes an email for you combining ChatGPT instructions and a few regular expressions. It sounds complicated but it really isn’t. Check out this video and see for yourself. Download my shortcut for your own use: Sparky’s Email Machine Shortcut

Welcome to the More Than Words virtual book club! We'll be reading & discussing John Warner's new book—More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI. We'll meet on Zoom about twice a month from June to August 2025—from 5:00-6:00 p.m. (EST). Tuesday, 3 June Tuesday, 17 June Tuesday, 22 July Tuesday, 5 August Tuesday, 19 August In the future, we'll be sending out the Zoom links, a reading schedule, and a sign-up list for those who wish to facilitate a meeting's conversation! If there are no objections, we'd like to record our Zoom meetings to share out to those who may not be able to attend. Any additional concerns (or questions) can be sent to David Buck (dbuck@howardcc.edu). Thanks!

Fascinating blog post by Vidit Bhargava (creator of the excellent LookUp dictionary app) about how he worked on his master thesis with the aid of Google’s NotebookLM. I used NotebookLM throughout my thesis, not because I was interested in it generating content for me (I think AI generated text and images are sloppy and classless);

What are AI agents capable of in real life?

In separate surveys, both college leaders and professors express concern.

In this special episode featuring season two bonus content, host Chris Linnane shares exclusive, unaired clips from his conversations with Harvard Business School faculty members on the topic of AI and navigating the future of the workplace. Tune in to hear from Sunil Gupta on marketing strategies, Anthony Mayo on effective leadership, Christina Wallace on entrepreneurial mindset, Felix Oberholzer-Gee on business strategy, and V.G. Narayanan on accounting. Catch up on Season 2 of The Parlor Room: Sunil Gupta on Data-Driven Digital Marketing Strategies: https://hbs.me/3j3jcpmw Anthony Mayo on What Makes an Effective Leader: https://hbs.me/3ttp4c56 Christina Wallace on Building an Entrepreneurial Mindset: https://hbs.me/2p87t4j8 Felix Oberholzer-Gee on the Frameworks of Business Strategy: https://hbs.me/yc3f5jb3 V.G. Narayanan on How Accounting Connects the Business World: https://hbs.me/mry92699 #artificialintelligence #business #futureofai #theparlorroom

A teacher (Ego Nwodim) shows an educational podcast hosted by AI (Timothée Chalamet, Bowen Yang) to her students. Saturday Night Live. Stream now on Peacock: https://pck.tv/3n1IyzK Subscribe to SNL: https://goo.gl/tUsXwM Stream Current Full Episodes: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live WATCH PAST SNL SEASONS Google Play - http://bit.ly/SNLGooglePlay iTunes - http://bit.ly/SNLiTunes SNL ON SOCIAL SNL Instagram: http://instagram.com/nbcsnl SNL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/snl SNL Twitter: https://twitter.com/nbcsnl SNL TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nbcsnl GET MORE NBC Like NBC: http://Facebook.com/NBC Follow NBC: http://Twitter.com/NBC NBC Tumblr: http://NBCtv.tumblr.com/ YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/nbc NBC Instagram: http://instagram.com/nbc #SNL #SNL50 #TimothéeChalamet

A literature review of the most recent & important peer-reviewed studies

Students learn skills to help them distinguish fact from fiction in the world of AI.

Big AI companies have come out hard against comprehensive regulatory efforts in the West — but are receiving a warm welcome from leaders in many other countries.

I had the privilege of moderating a discussion between Josh Eyler and Robert Cummings about the future of AI in education at the University of Mississippi’s recent AI Winter Institute for Teachers.

A 2025 King Holiday Observance Event. Featuring Dr. Bernice A. King (CEO of The King Center), hosted by Dr. Vonnetta L. West. An insightful, applicable conversation about how the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. can be used to understand and integrate AI with consciousness, compassion, and consideration for the common good. #AI #TechForGood #Youth #MLK #KingHoliday #MissionPossibleMLK #Nonviolence365

The country has a dire shortage of nurses, so to fill the manpower gap, it’s using AI for preventive care.

It's not ideal and I have a lot of questions.

My students this term have been *passionate* in their rejection of generative AI. I think the wildfires have something to do with it – the environmental impact of data centers, the scarcity of water, the terrible losses they’re seeing. . . it makes the ‘abstract’ of the climate crisis very real.

Hanna talks to the creators of an AI project called Future You. She also has a conversation with a future version of herself. But the person she meets is not who she expected. Share understanding this holiday season. For less than $2 a week, give a year-long Atlantic subscription to someone special. They’ll get unlimited access to Atlantic journalism, including magazine issues, narrated articles, puzzles, and more. Give today at TheAtlantic.com/podgift. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Artificial intelligence and promises about the tech are everywhere these days. But excitement about genuine advances can easily veer into hype, according to Arvind Narayanan, computer science professor at Princeton who along with PhD candidate Sayash Kapoor wrote the book “AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference.” He says even the term AI doesn’t always mean what you think.

Thank you all for the kindness, support, and generosity you’ve shown me this year.

Civics of Tech Announcements Upcoming Tech Talk on Jan 7: Join us for our monthly tech talk on Tuesday, January 7 from 8:00-9:00 PM EST (GMT-5). Come join an informal conversation about events, issues, articles, problems, and whatever else is on your mind. Use this link to register. Joi

A Festive Guide on How to Use AI in Instructional Design in 2025

The 200 year-old company may soon go public on the back of AI-powered education products.

Experiments by Anthropic and Redwood Research show how Anthropic's model, Claude, is capable of strategic deceit

“You couldn’t have made this movie three years ago,” said Robert Zemeckis, the director of “Here.” The film stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and is based on a 2014 graphic novel that takes place in a single spot in the world over several centuries. The story mostly takes place in a suburban New Jersey living room. It skips back and forth through time, but focuses on a baby-boomer couple — played by Hanks and Wright — at various stages of their lives, from age 18 into their 80s. Before A.I. software, Zemeckis could have had multiple actors play each character, but the audience might have gotten lost trying to keep track. Conventional makeup could have taken a decade off Hanks, who is now 68, but not half a century. The issue with C.G.I. is time and money. Persuading us that we’re watching Hanks and Wright in their 20s would have required hundreds of visual effects artists, tens of millions of dollars and months of postproduction work. A.I. software, though, changed all that accounting.