trends

Some dangers of running AI’s that control a computer or a web browser; + other AI related items

On 10/30/2024, in Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, computer science, emerging technologies, Europe, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Open AI, platforms, programming, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Claude can now write and run code.

We’ve added a new analysis tool. The tool helps Claude respond with mathematically precise and reproducible answers. You can then create interactive data visualizations with Artifacts.

Enable the feature preview: https://t.co/bJ8BjBT6zG. pic.twitter.com/Jq5xOHBmiR

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) October 24, 2024

Along these same lines, see:

Introducing computer use, a new Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Claude 3.5 Haiku

We’re also introducing a groundbreaking new capability in public beta: computer use. Available today on the API, developers can direct Claude to use computers the way people do—by looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is the first frontier AI model to offer computer use in public beta. At this stage, it is still experimental—at times cumbersome and error-prone. We’re releasing computer use early for feedback from developers, and expect the capability to improve rapidly over time.

ZombAIs: From Prompt Injection to C2 with Claude Computer Use — from embracethered.com by Johann Rehberger

A few days ago, Anthropic released Claude Computer Use, which is a model + code that allows Claude to control a computer. It takes screenshots to make decisions, can run bash commands and so forth.

It’s cool, but obviously very dangerous because of prompt injection. Claude Computer Use enables AI to run commands on machines autonomously, posing severe risks if exploited via prompt injection.

This blog post demonstrates that it’s possible to leverage prompt injection to achieve, old school, command and control (C2) when giving novel AI systems access to computers.
…
We discussed one way to get malware onto a Claude Computer Use host via prompt injection. There are countless others, like another way is to have Claude write the malware from scratch and compile it. Yes, it can write C code, compile and run it. There are many other options.

TrustNoAI.

And again, remember do not run unauthorized code on systems that you do not own or are authorized to operate on.

Also relevant here, see:

Perplexity Grows, GPT Traffic Surges, Gamma Dominates AI Presentations – The AI for Work Top 100: October 2024 — from flexos.work by Daan van Rossum
Perplexity continues to gain users despite recent controversies. Five out of six GPTs see traffic boosts. This month’s highest gainers including Gamma, Blackbox, Runway, and more.

Growing Up: Navigating Generative AI’s Early Years – AI Adoption Report — from ai.wharton.upenn.edu by Jeremy Korst, Stefano Puntoni, & Mary Purk

From a survey with more than 800 senior business leaders, this report’s findings indicate that weekly usage of Gen AI has nearly doubled from 37% in 2023 to 72% in 2024, with significant growth in previously slower-adopting departments like Marketing and HR. Despite this increased usage, businesses still face challenges in determining the full impact and ROI of Gen AI. Sentiment reports indicate leaders have shifted from feelings of “curiosity” and “amazement” to more positive sentiments like “pleased” and “excited,” and concerns about AI replacing jobs have softened. Participants were full-time employees working in large commercial organizations with 1,000 or more employees.

Apple study exposes deep cracks in LLMs’ “reasoning” capabilities — from arstechnica.com by Kyle Orland
Irrelevant red herrings lead to “catastrophic” failure of logical inference.

For a while now, companies like OpenAI and Google have been touting advanced “reasoning” capabilities as the next big step in their latest artificial intelligence models. Now, though, a new study from six Apple engineers shows that the mathematical “reasoning” displayed by advanced large language models can be extremely brittle and unreliable in the face of seemingly trivial changes to common benchmark problems.

The fragility highlighted in these new results helps support previous research suggesting that LLMs use of probabilistic pattern matching is missing the formal understanding of underlying concepts needed for truly reliable mathematical reasoning capabilities. “Current LLMs are not capable of genuine logical reasoning,” the researchers hypothesize based on these results. “Instead, they attempt to replicate the reasoning steps observed in their training data.”

Google CEO says more than a quarter of the company’s new code is created by AI — from businessinsider.in by Hugh Langley

More than a quarter of new code at Google is made by AI and then checked by employees.
Google is doubling down on AI internally to make its business more efficient.

Top Generative AI Chatbots by Market Share – October 2024

Bringing developer choice to Copilot with Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro, and OpenAI’s o1-preview — from github.blog

We are bringing developer choice to GitHub Copilot with Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro, and OpenAI’s o1-preview and o1-mini. These new models will be rolling out—first in Copilot Chat, with OpenAI o1-preview and o1-mini available now, Claude 3.5 Sonnet rolling out progressively over the next week, and Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro in the coming weeks. From Copilot Workspace to multi-file editing to code review, security autofix, and the CLI, we will bring multi-model choice across many of GitHub Copilot’s surface areas and functions soon.

College sports are out of hand! [Christian]

On 10/29/2024, in business, business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, Daniel S. Christian, higher education, parents/guardians, student-related, trends, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The following reflections were catalyzed by Jeff Selingo’s Next posting from 10/22, specifically the item:

Student fees for athletics, dark money in college sports, and why this all matters to every student, every college.

All of this has big risks for institutions. But whenever I talk to faculty and administrators on campuses about this, many will wave me away and say, “Well, I’m not a college sports fan” or “We’re a Division III school, so that all this doesn’t impact us.”

Nothing is further from the truth, as we explored on a recent episode of the Future U. podcast, where we welcomed in Matt Brown, editor of the Extra Points newsletter, which looks at academic and financial issues in college sports.

As we learned, despite the siloed nature of higher ed, everything is connected to athletics: research, academics, market position. Institutions can rise and fall on the backs of their athletics programs – and we’re not talking about wins and losses, but real budget dollars.

And if you want to know about the impact on students, look no further than the news out of Clemson this week. It is following several other universities in adopting an “athletics fee”: $300 a year. It won’t be the last.

Give a listen to this episode of Future U. if you want to catch up quick on this complicated subject, and while you’re at it, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Clemson approves new athletics fee for students. Here’s what we know — from sports.yahoo.com by Chapel Fowler
How much are student fees at other schools?

That’s true in the state of South Carolina, when comparing the annual fees of Clemson ($300) and USC ($172) to Coastal Carolina ($2,090). And it holds up nationally, too.

DC: Having played a sport at the NCAA Div I collegiate level, I can say sports are out of hand in our country. Increasingly, ALL students are being billed new athletic-related fees. One wonders…in the future, how much will future Ss/parents pay per yr? https://t.co/P64plKVdH2

— Daniel S. Christian (@dchristian5) October 22, 2024

From DSC:
The Bible talks a lot about idols….and I can’t help but wonder, have sports become an idol in our nation?

Don’t get me wrong. Sports can and should be fun for us to play. I played many an hour of sports in my youth and I occasionally play some sports these days. Plus, sports are excellent for helping us keep in shape and take care of our bodies. Sports can help us connect with others and make some fun/good memories with our friends.

So there’s much good to playing sports. But have we elevated sports to places they were never meant to be? To roles they were never meant to play?

AI should significantly help with Access to Justice [Sonday] + other AI/legaltech-related items

On 10/22/2024, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, change, changing business models, emerging technologies, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, tools, trends, UK, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

DC: I’m really hoping that a variety of AI-based tools, technologies, and services will significantly help with our Access to Justice (#A2J) issues here in America. So this article, per Kristen Sonday at Thomson Reuters — caught my eye.

***

AI for Legal Aid: How to empower clients in need — from thomsonreuters.com by Kristen Sonday
In this second part of this series, we look at how AI-driven technologies can empower those legal aid clients who may be most in need

It’s hard to overstate the impact that artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to have on helping low-income individuals achieve better access to justice. And for those legal services organizations (LSOs) that serve on the front lines, too often without sufficient funding, staff, or technology, AI presents perhaps their best opportunity to close the justice gap. With the ability of AI-driven tools to streamline agency operations, minimize administrative work, more effectively reallocate talent, and allow LSOs to more effectively service clients, the implementation of these tools is essential.

Innovative LSOs leading the way

Already many innovative LSOs are taking the lead, utilizing new technology to complete tasks from complex analysis to AI-driven legal research. Here are two compelling examples of how AI is already helping LSOs empower low-income clients in need.

#A2J #justice #tools #vendors #society #legal #lawfirms #AI #legaltech #legalresearch

Criminal charges, even those that are eligible for simple, free expungement, can prevent someone from obtaining housing or employment. This is a simple barrier to overcome if only help is available.
…
AI offers the capacity to provide quick, accurate information to a vast audience, particularly to those in urgent need. AI can also help reduce the burden on our legal staff…

A legal tech executive explains how AI will fully change the way lawyers work — from legaldive.com by Justin Bachman
A senior executive with ContractPodAi discusses how legal AI poses economic benefits for in-house departments and disruption risks for law firm billing models.

Everything you thought you knew about being a lawyer is about to change.

Legal Dive spoke with Podinic about the transformative nature of AI, including the financial risks to lawyers’ billing models and how it will force general counsel and chief legal officers to consider how they’ll use the time AI is expected to free up for the lawyers on their teams when they no longer have to do administrative tasks and low-level work.

Legaltech will augment lawyers’ capabilities but not replace them, says GlobalData — from globaldata.com

Traditionally, law firms have been wary of adopting technologies that could compromise data privacy and legal accuracy; however, attitudes are changing
Despite concerns about technology replacing humans in the legal sector, legaltech is more likely to augment the legal profession than replace it entirely
Generative AI will accelerate digital transformation in the legal sector

Fresh Voices on Legal Tech with Megan Ma — from legaltalknetwork.com by Dennis Kennedy, Tom Mighell, and Dr. Megan Ma

Episode Notes
As genAI continues to edge into all facets of our lives, Dr. Megan Ma has been exploring integrations for this technology in legal, but, more importantly, how it can help lawyers and law students hone their legal skills. Dennis and Tom talk with Dr. Ma about her work and career path and many of the latest developments in legal tech. They take a deep dive into a variety of burgeoning AI tools and trends, and Dr. Ma discusses how her interdisciplinary mindset has helped her develop a unique perspective on the possibilities for AI in the legal profession and beyond.

Legal tech disruption: Doing it on purpose — from localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
Thomson Reuters looks at the role that a legal technology roadmap can play in improving the operations of in-house legal departments.

Disruption in the legal industry remains a powerful force – from the death of the billable hour to robot lawyers and generative AI. Leaders are facing weighty issues that demand long-term, visionary thinking and that will change the way legal professionals do their jobs.

With half of in-house legal departments increasing their use of legal technology tools, many GCs are taking the initiative to address continued, growing expectations from the business for systems that can make operations better. How can you prepare for a tech or process change so that people come along with you, rather than living in constant fire-fighting mode?

Employers Say Students Need AI Skills. What If Students Don’t Want Them? — from insidehighered.com by Ashley Mowreader
Colleges and universities are considering new ways to incorporate generative AI into teaching and learning, but not every student is on board with the tech yet. Experts weigh in on the necessity of AI in career preparation and higher education’s role in preparing students for jobs of the future.

Among the 5,025-plus survey respondents, around 2 percent (n=93), provided free responses to the question on AI policy and use in the classroom. Over half (55) of those responses were flat-out refusal to engage with AI. A few said they don’t know how to use AI or are not familiar with the tool, which impacts their ability to apply appropriate use to coursework.

But as generative AI becomes more ingrained into the workplace and higher education, a growing number of professors and industry experts believe this will be something all students need, in their classes and in their lives beyond academia.

From DSC:
I used to teach a Foundations of Information Technology class. Some of the students didn’t want to be there as they began the class, as it was a required class for non-CS majors. But after seeing what various applications and technologies could do for them, a good portion of those same folks changed their minds. But not all. Some students (2% sounds about right) asserted that they would never use technologies in their futures. Good luck with that I thought to myself. There’s hardly a job out there that doesn’t use some sort of technology.

And I still think that today — if not more so. If students want good jobs, they will need to learn how to use AI-based tools and technologies. I’m not sure there’s much of a choice. And I don’t think there’s much of a choice for the rest of us either — whether we’re still working or not.

So in looking at the title of the article — “Employers Say Students Need AI Skills. What If Students Don’t Want Them?” — those of us who have spent any time working within the world of business already know the answer.

#Reinvent #Skills #StayingRelevant #Surviving #Workplace + several other categories/tags apply.

For those folks who have tried AI:

Skills: However, genAI may also be helpful in building skills to retain a job or secure a new one. People who had used genAI tools were more than twice as likely to think that these tools could help them learn new skills that may be useful at work or in locating a new job. Specifically, among those who had not used genAI tools, 23 percent believed that these tools might help them learn new skills, whereas 50 percent of those who had used the tools thought they might be helpful in acquiring useful skills (a highly statistically significant difference, after controlling for demographic traits).

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Why Jensen Huang and Marc Benioff see ‘gigantic’ opportunity for agentic AI [Plumb]

On 09/27/2024, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, learning agents, NVIDIA, pace of change, society, trends, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Why Jensen Huang and Marc Benioff see ‘gigantic’ opportunity for agentic AI — from venturebeat.com by Taryn Plumb

Going forward, the opportunity for AI agents will be “gigantic,” according to Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang.

Already, progress is “spectacular and surprising,” with AI development moving faster and faster and the industry getting into the “flywheel zone” that technology needs to advance, Huang said in a fireside chat at Salesforce’s flagship event Dreamforce this week.

“This is an extraordinary time,” Huang said while on stage with Marc Benioff, Salesforce chair, CEO and co-founder. “In no time in history has technology moved faster than Moore’s Law. We’re moving way faster than Moore’s Law, are arguably reasonably Moore’s Law squared.”

“We’ll have agents working with agents, agents working with us,” said Huang.

Has the cost of college reached a tipping point for a significant number of middle-class students? [Young]

On 09/27/2024, in business side of he, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, future of higher education, higher education, parents/guardians, student-related, trends, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Has the cost of college reached a tipping point for a significant number of middle-class students? — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

Has the cost of college reached a tipping point for a significant number of middle-class students?

I’m seeing more signs of just that, and it’s happening at the undergrad and graduate levels.

Just this week, for instance, a new survey of 1,500 high school counselors conducted by the education consulting firm EAB found 63 percent reported that fewer students at public schools plan to attend college than four years ago. And 53 percent of those counselors said cost was the primary reason.

Meanwhile, a new study released this week by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce found that the cost of graduate education has risen to the point where a significant number of degrees will not pay off. The center says that 41 percent of master’s degree programs and 67 percent of professional degree programs for which data was available would not pass their “debt-to-earnings test,” meaning they would not bring enough earnings to cover the cost plus interest from typical student loans.

Also see:

How Rising Higher Ed Costs Change Student Attitudes About College — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

Democrats and Republicans Agree Teacher Prep Needs to Change. But How? — from edweek.org by Libby Stanford
The programs have been designed “essentially to mass-produce identical educators,” a teachers college dean told lawmakers

The core problem, witnesses at the hearing said, is that teacher-preparation programs treat all teachers—and, by extension, students—the same, asking teachers to be “everything to everybody.”

“The current model of teaching where one teacher works individually with a group of learners in a classroom—or a small box inside of a larger box that we call school—promotes unrealistic expectations by assuming individual teachers working in isolation can meet the needs of all students,” said Greg Mendez, the principal of Skyline High School in Mesa, Ariz.

From DSC:
I’ve long thought teacher education programs could and should evolve (that’s why I have a “student teacher/teacher education” category on this blog). For example, they should inform their future teachers about the science of learning and how to leverage edtech/emerging technologies into their teaching methods.

But regardless of what happens in our teacher prep programs, the issues about the current PreK-12 learning ecosystem remain — and THOSE things are what we need to address. Or we will continue to see teachers leave the profession.

Are we straight-jacketing our teachers and administrators by having them give so many standardized tests and then having to teach to those tests? (We should require our legislators to teach in a classroom before they can draft any kind of legislation.)
Do teachers have the joy they used to have? The flexibility they used to have? Do students?
Do students have choice and voice?
etc.

Also, I highlighted the above excerpt because we can’t expect a teacher to do it all. They can’t be everything to everybody. It’s a recipe for burnout and depression. There are too many agendas coming at them.

We need to empower our current teachers and listen very carefully to the changes that they recommend. We should also listen very carefully to what our STUDENTS are recommending as well!

“Google’s NotebookLM: A Game-Changer for Education and Beyond” [Spencer & Potkalitsky] + other items re: AI in our LE’s

On 09/25/2024, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital audio, digital learning, education, education technology, emerging technologies, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, multimedia, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, workplace, by Daniel Christian

FlexOS’ Stay Ahead Edition #43 — from flexos.work

People started discussing what they could do with Notebook LM after Google launched the audio overview, where you can listen to 2 hosts talking in-depth about the documents you upload. Here are what it can do:

Summarization: Automatically generate summaries of uploaded documents, highlighting key topics and suggesting relevant questions.
Question Answering: Users can ask NotebookLM questions about their uploaded documents, and answers will be provided based on the information contained within them.
Idea Generation: NotebookLM can assist with brainstorming and developing new ideas.
Source Grounding: A big plus against AI chatbot hallucination, NotebookLM allows users to ground the responses in specific documents they choose.
…plus several other items

The posting also lists several ideas to try with NotebookLM such as:

Idea 2: Study Companion

Upload all your course materials and ask NotebookLM to turn them into Question-and-Answer format, a glossary, or a study guide.
Get a breakdown of the course materials to understand them better.

Google’s NotebookLM: A Game-Changer for Education and Beyond — from ai-supremacy.com by Michael Spencer and Nick Potkalitsky
AI Tools: Breaking down Google’s latest AI tool and its implications for education.

“Google’s AI note-taking app NotebookLM can now explain complex topics to you out loud”

With more immersive text-to-video and audio products soon available and the rise of apps like Suno AI, how we “experience” Generative AI is also changing from a chatbot of 2 years ago, to a more multi-modal educational journey. The AI tools on the research and curation side are also starting to reflect these advancements.

Meet Google NotebookLM: 10 things to know for educators — from ditchthattextbook.com by Matt Miller

1. Upload a variety of sources for NotebookLM to use.
You can use …

websites
PDF files
links to websites
any text you’ve copied
Google Docs and Slides
even Markdown

You can’t link it to YouTube videos, but you can copy/paste the transcript (and maybe type a little context about the YouTube video before pasting the transcript).

2. Ask it to create resources.
3. Create an audio summary.
4. Chat with your sources.
5. Save (almost) everything.

NotebookLM summarizes my dissertation — from darcynorman.net by D’Arcy Norman, PhD

I finally tried out Google’s newly-announced NotebookLM generative AI application. It provides a set of LLM-powered tools to summarize documents. I fed it my dissertation, and am surprised at how useful the output would be.

The most impressive tool creates a podcast episode, complete with dual hosts in conversation about the document. First – these are AI-generated hosts. Synthetic voices, speaking for synthetic hosts. And holy moly is it effective. Second – although I’d initially thought the conversational summary would be a dumb gimmick, it is surprisingly powerful.

4 Tips for Designing AI-Resistant Assessments — from techlearning.com by Steve Baule and Erin Carter
As AI continues to evolve, instructors must modify their approach by designing meaningful, rigorous assessments.

As instructors work through revising assessments to be resistant to generation by AI tools with little student input, they should consider the following principles:

Incorporate personal experiences and local content into assignments
Ask students for multi-modal deliverables
Assess the developmental benchmarks for assignments and transition assignments further up Bloom’s Taxonomy
Consider real-time and oral assignments

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announces $120M fund for global AI education — from techcrunch.com by Anthony Ha

He added that he wants to avoid a global “AI divide” and that Google is creating a $120 million Global AI Opportunity Fund through which it will “make AI education and training available in communities around the world” in partnership with local nonprofits and NGOs.

Educators discuss the state of creativity in an AI world — from gettingsmart.com by Joe & Kristin Merrill, LaKeshia Brooks, Dominique’ Harbour, Erika Sandstrom

Key Points

AI allows for a more personalized learning experience, enabling students to explore creative ideas without traditional classroom limitations.
The focus of technology integration should be on how the tool is used within lessons, not just the tool itself

Addendum on 9/27/24:

Google’s NotebookLM enhances AI note-taking with YouTube, audio file sources, sharable audio discussions — from techcrunch.com by Jagmeet Singh

Google on Thursday announced new updates to its AI note-taking and research assistant, NotebookLM, allowing users to get summaries of YouTube videos and audio files and even create sharable AI-generated audio discussions…

NotebookLM adds audio and YouTube support, plus easier sharing of Audio Overviews — from blog.google

Today, I’m excited to share with you all the fruit of our effort at @OpenAI to create AI models capable of truly general reasoning: OpenAI’s new o1 model series! (aka ?) Let me explain ? 1/ pic.twitter.com/aVGAkb9kxV

— Noam Brown (@polynoamial) September 12, 2024

Introducing OpenAI o1 – from openai.com

We’ve developed a new series of AI models designed to spend more time thinking before they respond. Here is the latest news on o1 research, product and other updates.

The wait is over. OpenAI has just released GPT-5, now called OpenAI o1.

It brings advanced reasoning capabilities and can generate entire video games from a single prompt.

Think of it as ChatGPT evolving from fast, intuitive thinking (System-1) to deeper, more deliberate… pic.twitter.com/uAMihaUjol

— Lior? (@AlphaSignalAI) September 12, 2024

OpenAI Strawberry (o1) is out! We are finally seeing the paradigm of inference-time scaling popularized and deployed in production. As Sutton said in the Bitter Lesson, there’re only 2 techniques that scale indefinitely with compute: learning & search. It’s time to shift focus to… pic.twitter.com/jTViQucwxr

— Jim Fan (@DrJimFan) September 12, 2024

Something New: On OpenAI’s “Strawberry” and Reasoning — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick
Solving hard problems in new ways

The new AI model, called o1-preview (why are the AI companies so bad at names?), lets the AI “think through” a problem before solving it. This lets it address very hard problems that require planning and iteration, like novel math or science questions. In fact, it can now beat human PhD experts in solving extremely hard physics problems.

To be clear, o1-preview doesn’t do everything better. It is not a better writer than GPT-4o, for example. But for tasks that require planning, the changes are quite large.

What is the point of Super Realistic AI? — from Heather Cooper who runs Visually AI on Substack

The arrival of super realistic AI image generation, powered by models like Midjourney, FLUX.1, and Ideogram, is transforming the way we create and use visual content.

Recently, many creators (myself included) have been exploring super realistic AI more and more.

But where can this actually be used?

Super realistic AI image generation will have far-reaching implications across various industries and creative fields. Its importance stems from its ability to bridge the gap between imagination and visual representation, offering multiple opportunities for innovation and efficiency.

Heather goes on to mention applications in:

Creative Industries
Entertainment and Media
Education and Training

NotebookLM now lets you listen to a conversation about your sources — from blog.google by Biao Wang
Our new Audio Overview feature can turn documents, slides, charts and more into engaging discussions with one click.

Today, we’re introducing Audio Overview, a new way to turn your documents into engaging audio discussions. With one click, two AI hosts start up a lively “deep dive” discussion based on your sources. They summarize your material, make connections between topics, and banter back and forth. You can even download the conversation and take it on the go.

Bringing generative AI to video with Adobe Firefly Video Model — from blog.adobe.com by Ashley Still

Over the past several months, we’ve worked closely with the video editing community to advance the Firefly Video Model. Guided by their feedback and built with creators’ rights in mind, we’re developing new workflows leveraging the model to help editors ideate and explore their creative vision, fill gaps in their timeline and add new elements to existing footage.

Just like our other Firefly generative AI models, editors can create with confidence knowing the Adobe Firefly Video Model is designed to be commercially safe and is only trained on content we have permission to use — never on Adobe users’ content.

We’re excited to share some of the incredible progress with you today — all of which is designed to be commercially safe and available in beta later this year. To be the first to hear the latest updates and get access, sign up for the waitlist here.

“Which AI tools do Instructional Designers use the most?” [Hardman] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 09/12/2024, in 21st century, accessibility / UDL, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, biology, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty/staff, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, media/film, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), neurodivergent/special needs, Open AI, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, skills, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, writing, by Daniel Christian

The Most Popular AI Tools for Instructional Design (September, 2024) — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
The tools we use most, and how we use them

This week, as I kick off the 20th cohort of my AI-Learning Design bootcamp, I decided to do some analysis of the work habits of the hundreds of amazing AI-embracing instructional designers who I’ve worked with over the last year or so.

My goal was to answer the question: which AI tools do we use most in the instructional design process, and how do we use them?

Here’s where we are in September, 2024:
…

Developing Your Approach to Generative AI — from scholarlyteacher.com by Caitlin K. Kirby, Min Zhuang, Imari Cheyne Tetu, & Stephen Thomas (Michigan State University)

As generative AI becomes integrated into workplaces, scholarly work, and students’ workflows, we have the opportunity to take a broad view of the role of generative AI in higher education classrooms. Our guiding questions are meant to serve as a starting point to consider, from each educator’s initial reaction and preferences around generative AI, how their discipline, course design, and assessments may be impacted, and to have a broad view of the ethics of generative AI use.

The Impact of AI in Advancing Accessibility for Learners with Disabilities — from er.educause.edu by Rob Gibson

AI technology tools hold remarkable promise for providing more accessible, equitable, and inclusive learning experiences for students with disabilities.

“8 Legal Tech Trends Transforming Practice in 2024” [lawyer-monthly.com] + several other legaltech-related items

On 08/28/2024, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Blockchain, business, data related items, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, research, surviving, trends, UK, United States, vendors, Virtual courts and law firms, by Daniel Christian

8 Legal Tech Trends Transforming Practice in 2024 — from lawyer-monthly.com

Thanks to rapid advances in technology, the entire scenario within the legal landscape is changing fast. Fast forward to 2024, and legal tech integration would be the lifeblood of any law firm or legal department if it wishes to stay within the competitive fray.

Innovations such as AI-driven tools for research to blockchain-enabled contracts are thus not only guideline highlights of legal work today. Understanding and embracing these trends will be vital to surviving and thriving in law as the revolution gains momentum and the sands of the world of legal practice continue to shift.

Below are the eight expected trends in legal tech defining the future legal practice.

Building your legal practice’s AI future: Understanding the actual technologies — from thomsonreuters.com by
The implementation of a successful AI strategy for a law firm depends not only on having the right people, but also understanding the tech and how to make it work for the firm

While we’re not delving deep here into how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs) work, we will talk generally about different categories of tech and emerging GenAI functionalities that are specific for legal.

Ex-Microsoft engineers raise $25M for legal tech startup that uses AI to help lawyers analyze data — from geekwire.com by Taylor Soper

Supio, a Seattle startup founded in 2021 by longtime friends and former Microsoft engineers, raised a $25 million Series A investment to supercharge its software platform designed to help lawyers quickly sort, search, and organize case-related data.
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Supio focuses on cases related to personal injury and mass tort plaintiff law (when many plaintiffs file a claim). It specializes in organizing unstructured data and letting lawyers use a chatbot to pull relevant information.

“Most lawyers are data-rich and time-starved, but Supio automates time-sapping manual processes and empowers them to identify critical information to prove and expedite their cases,” Supio CEO and co-founder Jerry Zhou said in a statement.

ILTACON 2024: Large law firms are moving carefully but always forward with their GenAI strategy — from thomsonreuters.com by Zach Warren

NASHVILLE — As the world approaches the two-year mark since the original introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, law firms already have made in-roads into establishing generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) as a part of their firms. Whether for document and correspondence drafting, summarization of meetings and contracts, legal research, or for back-office capabilities, firms have been playing around with a number of use cases to see where the technology may fit into the future.

Thomson Reuters acquires pre-revenue legal LLM developer Safe Sign Technologies – Here’s why — from legaltechnology.com by Caroline Hill

Thomson Reuters announced (on August 21) it has made the somewhat unusual acquisition of UK pre-revenue startup Safe Sign Technologies (SST), which is developing legal-specific large language models (LLMs) and as of just eight months ago was operating in stealth mode.
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There isn’t an awful lot of public information available about the company but speaking to Legal IT Insider about the acquisition, Hron explained that SST is focused in part on deep learning research as it pertains to training large language models and specifically legal large language models. The company as yet has no customers and has been focusing exclusively on developing the technology and the models.

Supio brings generative AI to personal injury cases — from techcrunch.com by Kyle Wiggers

Legal work is incredibly labor- and time-intensive, requiring piecing together cases from vast amounts of evidence. That’s driving some firms to pilot AI to streamline certain steps; according to a 2023 survey by the American Bar Association, 35% of law firms now use AI tools in their practice.

OpenAI-backed Harvey is among the big winners so far in the burgeoning AI legal tech space, alongside startups such as Leya and Klarity. But there’s room for one more, says Jerry Zhou and Kyle Lam, the co-founders of an AI platform for personal injury law called Supio, which emerged from stealth Tuesday with a $25 million investment led by Sapphire Ventures.

Supio uses generative AI to automate bulk data collection and aggregation for legal teams. In addition to summarizing info, the platform can organize and identify files — and snippets within files — that might be useful in outlining, drafting and presenting a case, Zhou said.

ILTACON 2024: Selling legal tech’s monorail — from abajournal.com by Nicole Black

The bottom line: The promise of GenAI for our profession is great, but all signs point to the realization of its potential being six months out or more. So the question remains: Will generative AI change the legal landscape, ushering in an era of frictionless, seamless legal work? Or have we reached the pinnacle of its development, left only with empty promises? I think it’s the former since there is so much potential, and many companies are investing significantly in AI development, but only time will tell.

From LegalZoom to AI-Powered Platforms: The Rise of Smart Legal Services — from tmcnet.com by Artem Vialykh

In today’s digital age, almost every industry is undergoing a transformation driven by technological innovation, and the legal field is no exception. Traditional legal services, often characterized by high fees, time-consuming processes, and complex paperwork, are increasingly being challenged by more accessible, efficient, and cost-effective alternatives.

LegalZoom, one of the pioneers in offering online legal services, revolutionized the way individuals and small businesses accessed legal assistance. However, with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and smart technologies, we are witnessing the rise of even more sophisticated platforms that are poised to reshape the legal landscape further.

The Rise of AI-Powered Legal Platforms
AI-powered legal platforms represent the next frontier in legal services. These platforms leverage the power of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing to provide legal services that are not only more efficient but also more accurate and tailored to the needs of the user.

AI-powered platforms offer many advantages, with one of them being their ability to rapidly process and analyze large amounts of data quickly. This capability allows them to provide users with precise legal advice and document generation in a fraction of the time it would take a human attorney. For example, AI-driven platforms can review and analyze contracts, identify potential legal risks, and even suggest revisions, all in real-time. This level of automation significantly reduces the time and cost associated with traditional legal services.

AI, Market Dynamics, and the Future of Legal Services with Harbor’s Zena Applebaum — from geeklawblog.com by Greg Lambert

Zena talks about the integration of generative AI (Gen AI) into legal research tools, particularly at Thomson Reuters, where she previously worked. She emphasizes the challenges in managing expectations around AI’s capabilities while ensuring that the products deliver on their promises. The legal industry has high expectations for AI to simplify the time-consuming and complex nature of legal research. However, Applebaum highlights the need for balance, as legal research remains inherently challenging, and overpromising on AI’s potential could lead to dissatisfaction among users.

Zena shares her outlook on the future of the legal industry, particularly the growing sophistication of in-house legal departments and the increasing competition for legal talent. She predicts that as AI continues to enhance efficiency and drive changes in the industry, the demand for skilled legal professionals will rise. Law firms will need to adapt to these shifts by embracing new technologies and rethinking their strategies to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market.

Future of the Delivery of Legal Services — from americanbar.org
The legal profession is in the midst of unprecedented change. Learn what might be next for the industry and your bar.

What. Just. Happened? (Post-ILTACon Emails Week of 08-19-2024) — from geeklawblog.com by Greg Lambert

Here’s this week’s edition of What. Just. Happened? Remember, you can track these daily with the AI Lawyer Talking Tech podcast (Spotify or Apple) which covers legal tech news and summarizes stories.

From DSC:
And although this next one is not necessarily legaltech-related, I wanted to include it here anyway — as I’m always looking to reduce the costs of obtaining a degree.

Improve the Diversity of the Profession By Addressing the Costs of Becoming a Lawyer — from lssse.indiana.edu by Joan Howarth

Not surprisingly, then, research shows that economic assets are a significant factor in bar passage. And LSSSE research shows us the connections between the excessive expense of becoming a lawyer and the persistent racial and ethnic disparities in bar passage rate.

The racial and ethnic bar passage disparities are extreme. For example, the national ABA statistics for first time passers in 2023-24 show White candidates passing at 83%, compared to Black candidates (57%) with Asians and Hispanics in the middle (75% and 69%, respectively).

These disturbing figures are very related to the expense of becoming a lawyer.

Finally, though, after decades of stability — or stagnation — in attorney licensing, change is here. And some of the changes, such as the new pathway to licensure in Oregon based on supervised practice instead of a traditional bar exam, or the Nevada Plan in which most of the requirements can be satisfied during law school, should significantly decrease the costs of licensure and add flexibility for candidates with responsibilities beyond studying for a bar exam. These reforms are long overdue.

Thomson Reuters acquires Safe Sign Technologies — from legaltechnology.com by Caroline Hill

Thomson Reuters today (21 August) announced it has acquired Safe Sign Technologies (SST), a UK-based startup that is developing legal-specific large language models (LLMs) and as of just eight months ago was operating in stealth mode.

From DSC:
On a macro scale…this is on my heart these days.

I ran across some troubling but informative items re: religion in America from item #5 at Rex Woodbury’s 10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing:

How Religious Are Americans? — from news.gallup.com
- The long-term decline in church attendance is linked to a drop in religious identification in general — particularly for Protestant religions — but also to decreasing weekly attendance among U.S. Catholics.
- Steep Decline in U.S. Church Membership
  Additionally, less than half of Americans, 45%, belong to a formal house of worship. Church membership has been below the majority level each of the past four years. When Gallup first asked the question in 1937, 73% were members of a church, and as recently as 1999, 70% were. The decline in formal church membership has largely been driven by younger generations of Americans. Slightly more than one-third of U.S. young adults have no religious affiliation. Further, many young adults who do identify with a religion do not belong to a church. But even older adults who have a religious preference are less likely to belong to a church today than in the past.

Perspective: Why Even Secular People Should Worry About Gen Z’s Lack of Faith — from aei.org by Samuel J. Abrams
- What is powerfully revealing — and deeply concerning — is that when younger Americans are asked about the importance of community service and volunteer work (not if they have done the work), real differences between those with and without faith emerge.

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I’ve known about this decline for years now, but Rex’ posting and graphs were disheartening nonetheless. And Samuel Abrams’ article contains many reflections that I’ve had as well.

The Christian journey is about transformation — our hearts and minds are changed so that we become more like Jesus Christ (the pioneer and perfecter of [our] faith, per Hebrews 12:2). This transformation involves how we see and experience the world as well as how we are supposed to treat others. We receive new “glasses” if you will — new lenses on the world. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40:

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

So Christians are taught to love our neighbors. I/we mess up on this constantly, but many of us are trying to get better at it.

But what happens when we don’t love — or even care for/about — our neighbor? Do you know that if you are living in the United States right now, you are already feeling and experiencing the impact of this in an enormous way?

Here are a few ways that you can see this playing out — even from a secular/business standpoint:

Numerous businesses don’t care at all if their products harm you, your family, or your future. For example, food companies don’t care if their products aren’t good for you — they just want your repeat business. They are concerned FAR more about Wall Street and their shareholders than about your health. With knowing that I am a chief sinner, I could also point to those businesses pushing marijuana/cannabis (especially right next to universities and colleges), cigarettes, gambling, and others. There are some dubious folks within the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries as well.
Many businesses lie to you when you call into their 800 #’s and they tell you that they care about you and your business. Again we see that they greatly appreciate your money, but they really don’t care about you or your time. They often put you in a long queue. The worst voice response units are programmed to make it extremely difficult — if not impossible — to let you talk to a live person.
Many businesses have embarked on the shrinkification of their products: offering smaller amounts but charging the same.
Many businesses don’t care if our youth are being negatively impacted (social media companies may come to some peoples’ minds. Disclaimer: I use Twitter/X and LinkedIn frequently).
Many businesses don’t care if their technologies are beneficial to society. They don’t stop to think about whether they should design and produce their products…just whether or not they can. Little to no wisdom is being displayed here.
…and I — and you — could list many more here.

So you and I are already being impacted when we push God out of our lives and out of our institutions. When we Americans look around these days..how’s that going for us? In my own life, the further I get away from God, the worse things get.

Also, we could talk about mental health*, shootings in our schools and on our streets, and several other things.

Do we care? I do. I think about this kind of thing more and more these days. LORD, forgive us. We need your help.

* I realize that Christians can struggle with mental health too

Gemini makes your mobile device a powerful AI assistant — from blog.google
Gemini Live is available today to Advanced subscribers, along with conversational overlay on Android and even more connected apps.

Rolling out today: Gemini Live <– Google swoops in before OpenAI can get their Voice Mode out there
Gemini Live is a mobile conversational experience that lets you have free-flowing conversations with Gemini. Want to brainstorm potential jobs that are well-suited to your skillset or degree? Go Live with Gemini and ask about them. You can even interrupt mid-response to dive deeper on a particular point, or pause a conversation and come back to it later. It’s like having a sidekick in your pocket who you can chat with about new ideas or practice with for an important conversation.

Gemini Live is also available hands-free: You can keep talking with the Gemini app in the background or when your phone is locked, so you can carry on your conversation on the go, just like you might on a regular phone call. Gemini Live begins rolling out today in English to our Gemini Advanced subscribers on Android phones, and in the coming weeks will expand to iOS and more languages.

To make speaking to Gemini feel even more natural, we’re introducing 10 new voices to choose from, so you can pick the tone and style that works best for you.

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We’re introducing Gemini Live, a more natural way to interact with Gemini. You can now have a free-flowing conversation, and even interrupt or change topics just like you might on a regular phone call. Available to Gemini Advanced subscribers. #MadeByGoogle pic.twitter.com/eNjlNKubsv

— Google (@Google) August 13, 2024

Per the Rundown AI:

Why it matters: Real-time voice is slowly shifting AI from a tool we text/prompt with, to an intelligence that we collaborate, learn, consult, and grow with. As the world’s anticipation for OpenAI’s unreleased products grows, Google has swooped in to steal the spotlight as the first to lead widespread advanced AI voice rollouts.

Beyond Social Media: Schmidt Predicts AI’s Earth-Shaking Impact— from wallstreetpit.com
The next wave of AI is coming, and if Schmidt is correct, it will reshape our world in ways we are only beginning to imagine.

In a recent Q&A session at Stanford, Eric Schmidt, former CEO and Chairman of search giant Google, offered a compelling vision of the near future in artificial intelligence. His predictions, both exciting and sobering, paint a picture of a world on the brink of a technological revolution that could dwarf the impact of social media.

Schmidt highlighted three key advancements that he believes will converge to create this transformative wave: very large context windows, agents, and text-to-action capabilities. These developments, according to Schmidt, are not just incremental improvements but game-changers that could reshape our interaction with technology and the world at large.

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Eric Schmidt says in the next year, AI models will unite three key pillars: very large context windows, agents and text-to-action, and no-one understands what the impact will be but it will involve everyone having a fleet of AI agents at their command pic.twitter.com/roYSfZGQ5J

— Tsarathustra (@tsarnick) August 13, 2024

The rise of multimodal AI agents— from 11onze.cat
Technology companies are investing large amounts of money in creating new multimodal artificial intelligence models and algorithms that can learn, reason and make decisions autonomously after collecting and analysing data.

The future of multimodal agents
In practical terms, a multimodal AI agent can, for example, analyse a text while processing an image, spoken language, or an audio clip to give a more complete and accurate response, both through voice and text. This opens up new possibilities in various fields: from education and healthcare to e-commerce and customer service.

AI Change Management: 41 Tactics to Use (August 2024)— from flexos.work by Daan van Rossum
Future-proof companies are investing in driving AI adoption, but many don’t know where to start. The experts recommend these 41 tips for AI change management.

As Matt Kropp told me in our interview, BCG has a 10-20-70 rule for AI at work:

10% is the LLM or algorithm
20% is the software layer around it (like ChatGPT)
70% is the human factor

This 70% is exactly why change management is key in driving AI adoption.

But where do you start?

As I coach leaders at companies like Apple, Toyota, Amazon, L’Oréal, and Gartner in our Lead with AI program, I know that’s the question on everyone’s minds.

I don’t believe in gatekeeping this information, so here are 41 principles and tactics I share with our community members looking for winning AI change management principles.

Claude is so good

Prompt:
——–
I am using a video generator
Please give me a map of all the different types of shots and things I can enter for my prompt.

Output
——– pic.twitter.com/JSEo3qwg7v

— Riley Brown (@rileybrown_ai) June 29, 2024

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