SAIL: Everything changes
Welcome to Sensemaking, AI, and Learning - a weekly look at general AI trends and educational impact.
Anyone in the education sector has experienced "next-thing-ism" - the constant hype cycle of [this new thing] will change our schools and universities. Sometimes it's a technology, such as the iPhone. Sometimes it's software such as MOOCs. Or learning management systems, learning analytics, and web 2.0. These are generally and prudently met with skepticism about their capacity to "change everything" since the change is within a silo or in one domain of impact. Change in education is hard simply because education is a system of systems. This means that any one change cannot tilt the system in a new direction.
But MOOCs were revolutionary. Universities couldn't fully absorb the idea of digital learning at scale; largely due to the ways that student tuition links to accreditation which links to state-level reporting. Instead, the idea of learning at scale moved outside of universities and universities used MOOCs as a feeder system for existing masters programs. There were some attempts at innovation through large scale freshmen classes, but they largely faded and companies like Coursera found a willing audience with the corporate sector.
AI is the next big thing to change everything. This time I believe it. Why? AI's impact is across systems. It changes everything. Think of what we know in the learning sciences - every aspect of it needs updating to include AI. All learning theories need to be re-conceptualized to account for AI. Communities of Inquiry? Scaffolding in learning? Creativity? Study skills? Everything we know about learning needs to be updated for AI. Seminal articles will be written over the next few years to address this urgent need for updating and incorporating the effects of AI.
Learning
We've been playing with the idea of what an AI-First University looks like (reach out privately if you're interested in discussing). We'll share resources on this in the next few weeks. The move to be an AI-centric university is moving quickly. UF has an early lead in the space.
How does AI change higher education? We held our first workshop in Dallas a few weeks ago on AI's impact on education. Together with WCET, OLC, WCET, and Tyton Partners, we're holding a workshop in Denver July 13. Registration is above. We're keeping it small to about 100 people, so you may want to register soon. We have additional events planned, including Singapore early June.
AI-ALOE is one of four NSF funded AI and learning centres. A short update on their take on ChatGPT.
Intelligent tutors have long been used in education (they're one of the more developed technologies), but since they're often built without designers focusing on the whole student experience, they end up lacking some aesthetics. That's changing: Virtual tutors for education.
There is a sudden interest in teaching AI literacy "My bigger concern is whether we will be able to get adults up to speed quickly enough. Without AI literacy among the internet-surfing adult population, more and more people are bound to fall prey to unrealistic expectations and hype."
The future of education in a world of AI. I don't think most universities will meet the needs of this moment in relation to AI. Vision is lacking. And AI is being treated as an add-on (this article does as well). It's hard to imagine a systemic restructuring. But that is precisely what AI will do. The decisions university leaders make in the next year will have long term impacts, including a coalescing of educational AI models.
AI in General
There will be many (many) chatgpt courses. Code Academy has one up now. UMich has a ChatGPT Teach Out
ChaosGPT. Because why not. "Based on the Auto-GPT code, a user created a project called ChaosGPT and asked how it would destroy humanity. ChaosGPT started by Googling 'most destructive weapons' to recruit a GPT-3.5-powered AI agent to do more research on deadly weapons. When GPT-3.5 says it's only focused on world peace- ChaosGPT devises a plan to get GPT-3.5 to ignore its programming."
Google continues to surprise me. It's slow and plodding in AI. And it has the biggest talent and resource pool. It's going to add AI to search (six months after ChatGPT appeared). I've been playing with Bard - it's not as intuitive as ChatGPT and not as engaging to work with. But the game is still early.
Tool to play with: Gamma: AI to improve your presentation.
Segment Anything Model "a new AI model from Meta AI that can "cut out" any object, in any image, with a single click"
AI Server shortage due to AI's rapid growth. Nvidia is loving life.
Text to video. Not great quality. But it will only get better.
Impact of AI
Last week I shared reports detailing AI-induced job losses. Here's a counter view: Nobody knows "But the truth is that no one knows that yet, and economists do the world a service by refusing to pretend that they do know."
The ridiculous AI-Pause letter would only help China. So says Google's ex-CEO
Biden says "tech companies have a responsibility to make sure their products are safe before making them public." That sound you hear in the distance is called regulation. The mighty warrior nation, Canada, opens ChatGPT probe.