SAIL: AI hype and the reality of systems change
Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning - a look at AI and its ongoing impact on education.
I have a good friend and colleague who is a linguist. This can be forgiven - he makes up for this liability by being visionary and a national leader in early adoption of technology and online learning in general. We disagree about the effects of AI. I'm reasonably clear: AI is the thing that we have to understand as a society. In my case, I'm interested in understanding AI from the lens of impact on education. I think it will force an overall re-architecting of universities (and, likely work). He, in contrast, looks at me in a linguistically snobbish way and feels I'm overstating things. To this end, he would classify me as an AI-hypester.
I think the hype is warranted. But it's not only because of AI. Wave after wave of technology advancement, social change, demographic shifts, and economic transitions have created a growing mismatch and misalignment between the needs of learners and the structure of universities (Carlota Perez's Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages offers a model of socio-technical-economic change that remains to me the most accurate framework to describe what we are experiencing). Even without AI, universities were growing in their disconnect between the needs of society and the needs of learners. Even without AI urgent change was needed. AI is another catalyst, but change has long been building and the disconnect has been amply clear to those tracking the trends through services like HolonIQ or just generally tracking edtech innovations (alternative pathways, stackable credentials, competency based learning). The university model as we know it is teetering. Change is coming and it will be systematic and dramatic.
AI and Learning
Not AI, but this report from Harvard from fifteen years ago was grappling with questions about the purpose of education. That's an increasingly relevant discussion today.
Codeacademy has a free course: Intro to ChatGPT
AI Technology
We have no moat. A leaked Google memo, the big news item over the last few days. "But the uncomfortable truth is, we aren’t positioned to win this arms race and neither is OpenAI. While we’ve been squabbling, a third faction has been quietly eating our lunch.I’m talking, of course, about open source. Plainly put, they are lapping us. Things we consider “major open problems” are solved and in people’s hands today."
These lists are a dime a dozen, but are still useful to skim to see prominent tools: The ultimate 100 AI tools
Algorithms animation and visualization Good resource that visualizes what different algorithms do. This is ground zero in AI literacy and some are complex. Developing a basic awareness of what algorithms do will become increasingly useful.
What are transformer models? Informative and important. Spend some time on this one.
Microsoft is continuing to evolve there AI offerings, getting into "compete with OpenAI" range
Why I'm having trouble covering AI. "If you believe that doom is a serious possibility, shouldn’t you mention it all the time?"
Expect big announcements from Google this week. Google is still the AI company. They haven't got their legs in this new public space where AI is prominent social media and not only in academic conferences. That may be changing.
Social Effects and AI
CEOs at the White House on Responsible AI innovation. "in order to realize the benefits that might come from advances in AI, it is imperative to mitigate both the current and potential risks AI poses to individuals, society, and national security. These include risks to safety, security, human and civil rights, privacy, jobs, and democratic values."
Oops: The Predicted 47 Percent of Job Loss From AI Didn’t Happen. From last year. A reminder that at least some of today's AI proclamations will soon look silly.
The AI conversation is male driven. Here is a good thread providing a counter balance by highlighting women who have made important contributions.
Warren Buffet is worried. "When something can do all kinds of things, I get a little bit worried. Because I know we won't be able to un-invent it"
This company added AI. What happened to human workers? "after the software company adopted AI, the average customer support representative became, on average, 14 percent more productive."
Amazon is being flooded by books written entirely by AI