I will grant you that "we have too many books to fit on shelves" is a good problem to have. BUT. It also means I am mega-weeding the fiction right now, which also requires me to remove every weeded book from the database by hand, which TAKETH TIME.
So no, I don't have any new thoughts to contribute to the AI in education conversation right now. Just one old one, namely "Where is FERPA? Does anyone care?" and also some links.
When Google brought its monorail to my campus
Google tries to "not sales pitch!" its edtech AI at KU. It goes about as well as you would predict.
OpenAI has a fix for hallucinations, but you really won't like it
Even with "perfect" data, these models cannot be made to stop hallucinating. Which means they can't actually do the ONE use case they have, which is "convince your Business Idiot boss they can replace you." So, again...why are we shoveling all of our money into these? Is anyone else worried at the lack of liquidity in venture capital right now? Or the fact that Oracle is so leveraged into OpenAI that Oracle only survives if OpenAI becomes more profitable than most nations combined within two years? Or that Softbank is borrowing billions to spit in the ocean of OpenAI's debt? Anyone?
Padlet: Critical AI Literacy for Educators, from KU
I am a librarian. Here is a library. You're welcome.
CHE: Sometimes we resist AI for good reasons
I confess: I have not read this one yet. It was linked in the monorail piece. But it sounded interesting in that context. So I will. Probably after lunch, while resting my brain from the Endless Weeding Database Edits.
The Economist: Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless
Our entire district had no Internet yesterday, which makes reading this today feel serendipitous or synchronous or something. Anyway this is one of those headlines that makes every single teacher say "yeah, duh," yet also seems to SHOCK and ASTONISH most admins? For instance I once worked in a district that cut K-8 music, art, and PE (state mandated and also proven to raise math and reading scores) in order to go 1:1 (i.e. give every student a Chromebook), despite the latter being proven to do absolutely nothing at all to math and reading scores. This in a district that was being threatened with a forced merger with the neighboring district if it didn't get its math and reading shit together. Cool. Did I mention our superintendent was a former edtech guy?
Not actually about AI; I just watched someone I thought was smarter than that willfully (god I hope it was willfully or they really are dumber than I thought) misconstrue this entire conversation this morning and it made me itchy.
the fungus identifying AI will kill you
This one's not about edtech, but it is about AI hallucinations and how they can make you hallucinate for realsies if you're unlucky. Fam, I grew up foraging mushrooms, and if you use anything but a whole lot of experience and education to identify mushrooms you deserve what you get. (Well, except dying. or permanent maiming. no one deserves that. but you absolutely deserve an evening of throwing up if that's what happens because you trusted your phone over your brain.)
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