What’s next for AI — from technologyreview.com by Melissa Heikkilä and Will Douglas Heaven
Get a head start with our four big bets for 2023.

Excerpts:

But take the conversational skills of ChatGPT and mix them up with image manipulation in a single model and you’d get something a lot more general-purpose and powerful. Imagine being able to ask a chatbot what’s in an image, or asking it to generate an image, and have these interactions be part of a conversation so that you can refine the results more naturally than is possible with DALL-E.

10 AI Predictions For 2023 — from forbes.com by Rob Toews

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

  1. GPT-4 will be released in the next couple months—and yes, it will be a big deal.
  2. We are going to start running out of data to train large language models.
  3. For the first time, some members of the general public will begin using fully driverless cars as their day-to-day mode of transportation.
  4. Midjourney will raise venture capital funding.
  5. Search will change more in 2023 than it has since Google went mainstream in the early 2000s.

AI Trends For 2023: Industry Experts (And ChatGPT AI) Make Their Predictions — from forbes.com by Ganes Kesari

Excerpt:

To understand the top AI trends, I asked industry leaders and academic experts five questions. It’s the age of human-machine collaboration, so what better way to demonstrate this than by asking AI software about the 2023 AI trends it’s excited about? I did that too.

    1. What do you think was the biggest achievement in the AI space in 2022?
    2. What’s the most exciting AI trend that you look forward to materializing in 2023?
    3. What’s a fad in this space that you wish would go away next year?
    4. To get value from AI, what’s one thing that leaders can start doing today that doesn’t take big effort or money?
    5. What’s one thing that leaders should stop doing immediately to realize benefits from AI?

Is A.I. the Future of Test Prep? — from nytimes.com by Craig S. Smith (NOTE: Paywall)

Excerpt:

Riiid is one of a handful of companies that believe that A.I.’s algorithms are perfectly suited to track student performance and give individualized attention.

“Education is a complex field deeply related to cognition, motivation, peer interaction, etc.,” Mr. Jang wrote in an email. “We draw insights from learning science, cognitive biology, data science, and other related areas of research for an iterative experimentation process that is challenging and time consuming — that’s why there are only a few players in the market.”

Artificial intelligence predictions 2023 — from information-age.com by Tim Adler
2023 could be the year that artificial intelligence moves from the fringes into the mainstream, as AI becomes widely adopted by healthcare, travel and banking. Five experts give their predictions

Excerpt:

Worldwide spending on artificial intelligence will hit half a billion dollars this year, according to IDC. Five artificial intelligence experts give Information Age their predictions as to how adoption of AI will accelerate in 2023.

.

 

ChatGPT and The Professional’s Guide to Using AI — from linkedin.com by Allie K. Miller

Excerpt:

Real Ways Professionals Can Use ChatGPT to Improve Job Performance
Let’s dive into some real examples of how professionals across sales, marketing, product management, project management, recruiting, and teaching can take advantage of this new tool and leverage it for even more impact in their careers.

Teachers and ChatGPT

  1. Help with grading and feedback on student work.
    Example prompt: “Tell me every grammar rule that’s been violated in this student’s essay: [paste in essay]”
  2. Create personalized learning materials.
    Example prompt: “Help me explain photosynthesis to a 10th grade student in a way similar to sports.”
  3. Generate lesson plans and activities.
    Example prompt: “Create an activity for 50 students that revolves around how to learn the different colors of the rainbow.” or “Generate a lesson plan for a high school English class on the theme of identity and self-discovery, suitable for a 45-minute class period.”
  4. Write fake essays several reading levels below your class, then print them out, and have your students review and edit the AI’s work to make it better.
    Example prompt: “Generate a 5th grade level short essay about Maya Angelou and her work.”
  5. Providing one-on-one support to students.
    Example prompt: “How can I best empower an introverted student in my classroom during reading time?”

From DSC:
I haven’t tried these prompts. Rather I post this because I’m excited about the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help people teach and to help people to learn.

 
 

AI bot ChatGPT stuns academics with essay-writing skills and usability — from theguardian.com by Alex Hern
Latest chatbot from Elon Musk-founded OpenAI can identify incorrect premises and refuse to answer inappropriate requests

Excerpt:

Professors, programmers and journalists could all be out of a job in just a few years, after the latest chatbot from the Elon Musk-founded OpenAI foundation stunned onlookers with its writing ability, proficiency at complex tasks, and ease of use.

The system, called ChatGPT, is the latest evolution of the GPT family of text-generating AIs. Two years ago, the team’s previous AI, GPT3, was able to generate an opinion piece for the Guardian, and ChatGPT has significant further capabilities.

In the days since it was released, academics have generated responses to exam queries that they say would result in full marks if submitted by an undergraduate, and programmers have used the tool to solve coding challenges in obscure programming languages in a matter of seconds – before writing limericks explaining the functionality.

 


Also related/see:


AI and the future of undergraduate writing — from chronicle.com by Beth McMurtrie

Excerpts:

Is the college essay dead? Are hordes of students going to use artificial intelligence to cheat on their writing assignments? Has machine learning reached the point where auto-generated text looks like what a typical first-year student might produce?

And what does it mean for professors if the answer to those questions is “yes”?

Scholars of teaching, writing, and digital literacy say there’s no doubt that tools like ChatGPT will, in some shape or form, become part of everyday writing, the way calculators and computers have become integral to math and science. It is critical, they say, to begin conversations with students and colleagues about how to shape and harness these AI tools as an aide, rather than a substitute, for learning.

“Academia really has to look at itself in the mirror and decide what it’s going to be,” said Josh Eyler, director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi, who has criticized the “moral panic” he has seen in response to ChatGPT. “Is it going to be more concerned with compliance and policing behaviors and trying to get out in front of cheating, without any evidence to support whether or not that’s actually going to happen? Or does it want to think about trust in students as its first reaction and building that trust into its response and its pedagogy?”

 

 

 

ChatGPT Could Be AI’s iPhone Moment — from bloomberg.com by Vlad Savov; with thanks to Dany DeGrave for his Tweet on this

Excerpt:

The thing is, a good toy has a huge advantage: People love to play with it, and the more they do, the quicker its designers can make it into something more. People are documenting their experiences with ChatGPT on Twitter, looking like giddy kids experimenting with something they’re not even sure they should be allowed to have. There’s humor, discovery and a game of figuring out the limitations of the system.

 


And on the legal side of things:


 

Understanding the Overlap Between UDL and Digital Accessibility — from boia.org

Excerpt:

Implementing UDL with a Focus on Accessibility
UDL is a proven methodology that benefits all students, but when instructors embrace universal design, they need to consider how their decisions will affect students with disabilities.

Some key considerations to keep in mind:

  • Instructional materials should not require a certain type of sensory perception.
  • A presentation that includes images should have accurate alternative text (also called alt text) for those images.
  • Transcripts and captions should be provided for all audio content.
  • Color alone should not be used to convey information, since some students may not perceive color (or have different cultural understandings of colors).
  • Student presentations should also follow accessibility guidelines. This increases the student’s workload, but it’s an excellent opportunity to teach the importance of accessibility.
 

Resources for Computer Science Education Week (December 5-11, 2022) — with thanks to Mark Adams for these resources

Per Mark, here are a few resources that are intended to show students how computers can become part of their outside interests as well as in their future careers.

Educating Engineers

Maryville University

Fullstack Academy

Also see:

Computer Science Education Week is December 5-11, 2022

 

MADE Podcast on Branching Scenarios — from christytuckerlearning.com by Christy Tucker
My interview for the MADE podcast on branching scenarios: when to use them, challenges, tools, planning, and getting started.

Excerpt:

MADE is the Media and Design in Education team for the University of Toronto. Inga Breede from this educational technology group recently interviewed me for their podcast. We talked about scenario-based learning and specifically about branching scenarios.

What we discussed
We covered several topics in our 20-minute conversation.

  • When should branching scenarios be used in learning experiences?
  • What are some of the challenges and limitations that designers typically come across when they’re building a branching scenario?
  • What are the key components to consider in the planning stage?
  • What are my favorite tools to use to build branching scenarios?
  • For learning designers who are interested in scenario building, where can they begin their journey of discovery?
 

TL;DR: Women prefer text contributions over talk in remote classes — from highereddive.com by Laura Spitalniak (BTW, TL;DR: is short for “too long; didn’t read”)

Dive Brief (emphasis DSC):

  • Female students show a stronger preference for contributing to remote classes via text chat than their male counterparts, according to peer-reviewed research published in PLOS One, an open-access journal.
  • Researchers also found all students were more likely to use the chat function to support or amplify their peers’ comments than to diminish them.
  • Given these findings, the researchers suggested incorporating text chats into class discussions could boost female participation in large introductory science classrooms, where women are less likely to participate than men.
 

10 Must Read Books for Learning Designers — from linkedin.com by Amit Garg

Excerpt:

From the 45+ #books that I’ve read in last 2 years here are my top 10 recommendations for #learningdesigners or anyone in #learninganddevelopment

Speaking of recommended books (but from a more technical perspective this time), also see:

10 must-read tech books for 2023 — from enterprisersproject.com by Katie Sanders (Editorial Team)
Get new thinking on the technologies of tomorrow – from AI to cloud and edge – and the related challenges for leaders

10 must-read tech books for 2023 -- from enterprisersproject.com by Katie Sanders

 

This Copyright Lawsuit Could Shape the Future of Generative AI — from wired.com by Will Knight
Algorithms that create art, text, and code are spreading fast—but legal challenges could throw a wrench in the works.

Excerpts:

A class-action lawsuit filed in a federal court in California this month takes aim at GitHub Copilot, a powerful tool that automatically writes working code when a programmer starts typing. The coder behind the suit argues that GitHub is infringing copyright because it does not provide attribution when Copilot reproduces open-source code covered by a license requiring it.

Programmers have, of course, always studied, learned from, and copied each other’s code. But not everyone is sure it is fair for AI to do the same, especially if AI can then churn out tons of valuable code itself, without respecting the source material’s license requirements. “As a technologist, I’m a huge fan of AI ,” Butterick says. “I’m looking forward to all the possibilities of these tools. But they have to be fair to everybody.”

Whatever the outcome of the Copilot case, Villa says it could shape the destiny of other areas of generative AI. If the outcome of the Copilot case hinges on how similar AI-generated code is to its training material, there could be implications for systems that reproduce images or music that matches the style of material in their training data. 

Also legal-related, see:


Also related to AI and art/creativity from Wired.com, see:


 
 

How AI will change Education: Part I | Transcend Newsletter #59 — from transcend.substack.com by Alberto Arenaza; with thanks to GSV’s Big 10 for this resource

Excerpt:

You’ve likely been reading for the last few minutes my arguments for why AI is going to change education. You may agree with some points, disagree with others…

Only, those were not my words.

An AI has written every single word in this essay up until here.

The only thing I wrote myself was the first sentence: Artificial Intelligence is going to revolutionize education. The images too, everything was generated by AI.

 

Using Virtual Reality for Career Training — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Indiana have had success using virtual reality simulations to teach students about career opportunities.

a Woman with a virtual reality set on occupies one half of the screen. The other shows virtual tools that she is controlling.

Excerpts:

Virtual reality can help boost CTE programs and teach students about potential careers in fields they may know nothing about, says Lana Taylor from the Indiana Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

One of those other resources has been a partnership with Transfer VR to provide students access to headsets to participate in career simulations that can give them a tactile sense of what working in certain careers might be like.

“Not all kids are meant to go to college, not all kids want to do it,” Taylor says. “So it’s important to give them some exposure to different careers and workforce paths that maybe they hadn’t thought of before.” 


AI interviews in VR prepare students for real jobseeking — from inavateonthenet.net

 

Get Ready to Relearn How to Use the Internet — from bloomberg.com by Tyle Cowen; with thanks to Sam DeBrule for this resource
Everyone knows that an AI revolution is coming, but no one seems to realize how profoundly it will change their day-to-day life.

Excerpts:

This year has brought a lot of innovation in artificial intelligence, which I have tried to keep up with, but too many people still do not appreciate the import of what is to come. I commonly hear comments such as, “Those are cool images, graphic designers will work with that,” or, “GPT-3 is cool, it will be easier to cheat on term papers.” And then they end by saying: “But it won’t change my life.”

This view is likely to be proven wrong — and soon, as AI is about to revolutionize our entire information architecture. You will have to learn how to use the internet all over again.

Change is coming. Consider Twitter, which I use each morning to gather information about the world. Less than two years from now, maybe I will speak into my computer, outline my topics of interest, and somebody’s version of AI will spit back to me a kind of Twitter remix, in a readable format and tailored to my needs.

The AI also will be not only responsive but active. Maybe it will tell me, “Today you really do need to read about Russia and changes in the UK government.” Or I might say, “More serendipity today, please,” and that wish would be granted.

Of course all this is just one man’s opinion. If you disagree, in a few years you will be able to ask the new AI engines what they think.

Some other recent items from Sam DeBrule include:

Natural Language Assessment: A New Framework to Promote Education — from ai.googleblog.com by Kedem Snir and Gal Elidan

Excerpt:

In this blog, we introduce an important natural language understanding (NLU) capability called Natural Language Assessment (NLA), and discuss how it can be helpful in the context of education. While typical NLU tasks focus on the user’s intent, NLA allows for the assessment of an answer from multiple perspectives. In situations where a user wants to know how good their answer is, NLA can offer an analysis of how close the answer is to what is expected. In situations where there may not be a “correct” answer, NLA can offer subtle insights that include topicality, relevance, verbosity, and beyond. We formulate the scope of NLA, present a practical model for carrying out topicality NLA, and showcase how NLA has been used to help job seekers practice answering interview questions with Google’s new interview prep tool, Interview Warmup.

How AI could help translate extreme weather alerts — from axios.com by Ayurella Horn-Muller

Excerpt:

A startup that provides AI-powered translation is working with the National Weather Service to improve language translations of extreme weather alerts across the U.S.

Using GPT-3 to augment human intelligence — from escapingflatland.substack.com by Henrik Karlsson

Excerpt:

When I’ve been doing this with GPT-3, a 175 billion parameter language model, it has been uncanny how much it reminds me of blogging. When I’m writing this, from March through August 2022, large language models are not yet as good at responding to my prompts as the readers of my blog. But their capacity is improving fast and the prices are dropping.

Soon everyone can have an alien intelligence in their inbox.

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian