NVIDIA’s Apple moment?! — from theneurondaily.com by Noah Edelman and Grant Harvey
PLUS: How to level up your AI workflows for 2025…

NVIDIA wants to put an AI supercomputer on your desk (and it only costs $3,000).

And last night at CES 2025, Jensen Huang announced phase two of this plan: Project DIGITS, a $3K personal AI supercomputer that runs 200B parameter models from your desk. Guess we now know why Apple recently developed an NVIDIA allergy

But NVIDIA doesn’t just want its “Apple PC moment”… it also wants its OpenAI moment. NVIDIA also announced Cosmos, a platform for building physical AI (think: robots and self-driving cars)—which Jensen Huang calls “the ChatGPT moment for robotics.”


Jensen Huang’s latest CES speech: AI Agents are expected to become the next robotics industry, with a scale reaching trillions of dollars — from chaincatcher.com

NVIDIA is bringing AI from the cloud to personal devices and enterprises, covering all computing needs from developers to ordinary users.

At CES 2025, which opened this morning, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang delivered a milestone keynote speech, revealing the future of AI and computing. From the core token concept of generative AI to the launch of the new Blackwell architecture GPU, and the AI-driven digital future, this speech will profoundly impact the entire industry from a cross-disciplinary perspective.

Also see:


NVIDIA Project DIGITS: The World’s Smallest AI Supercomputer. — from nvidia.com
A Grace Blackwell AI Supercomputer on your desk.


From DSC:
I’m posting this next item (involving Samsung) as it relates to how TVs continue to change within our living rooms. AI is finding its way into our TVs…the ramifications of this remain to be seen.


OpenAI ‘now knows how to build AGI’ — from therundown.ai by Rowan Cheung
PLUS: AI phishing achieves alarming success rates

The Rundown: Samsung revealed its new “AI for All” tagline at CES 2025, introducing a comprehensive suite of new AI features and products across its entire ecosystem — including new AI-powered TVs, appliances, PCs, and more.

The details:

  • Vision AI brings features like real-time translation, the ability to adapt to user preferences, AI upscaling, and instant content summaries to Samsung TVs.
  • Several of Samsung’s new Smart TVs will also have Microsoft Copilot built in, while also teasing a potential AI partnership with Google.
  • Samsung also announced the new line of Galaxy Book5 AI PCs, with new capabilities like AI-powered search and photo editing.
  • AI is also being infused into Samsung’s laundry appliances, art frames, home security equipment, and other devices within its SmartThings ecosystem.

Why it matters: Samsung’s web of products are getting the AI treatment — and we’re about to be surrounded by AI-infused appliances in every aspect of our lives. The edge will be the ability to sync it all together under one central hub, which could position Samsung as the go-to for the inevitable transition from smart to AI-powered homes.

***

“Samsung sees TVs not as one-directional devices for passive consumption but as interactive, intelligent partners that adapt to your needs,” said SW Yong, President and Head of Visual Display Business at Samsung Electronics. “With Samsung Vision AI, we’re reimagining what screens can do, connecting entertainment, personalization, and lifestyle solutions into one seamless experience to simplify your life.”from Samsung


Understanding And Preparing For The 7 Levels Of AI Agents — from forbes.com by Douglas B. Laney

The following framework I offer for defining, understanding, and preparing for agentic AI blends foundational work in computer science with insights from cognitive psychology and speculative philosophy. Each of the seven levels represents a step-change in technology, capability, and autonomy. The framework expresses increasing opportunities to innovate, thrive, and transform in a data-fueled and AI-driven digital economy.


The Rise of AI Agents and Data-Driven Decisions — from devprojournal.com by Mike Monocello
Fueled by generative AI and machine learning advancements, we’re witnessing a paradigm shift in how businesses operate and make decisions.

AI Agents Enhance Generative AI’s Impact
Burley Kawasaki, Global VP of Product Marketing and Strategy at Creatio, predicts a significant leap forward in generative AI. “In 2025, AI agents will take generative AI to the next level by moving beyond content creation to active participation in daily business operations,” he says. “These agents, capable of partial or full autonomy, will handle tasks like scheduling, lead qualification, and customer follow-ups, seamlessly integrating into workflows. Rather than replacing generative AI, they will enhance its utility by transforming insights into immediate, actionable outcomes.”


Here’s what nobody is telling you about AI agents in 2025 — from aidisruptor.ai by Alex McFarland
What’s really coming (and how to prepare). 

Everyone’s talking about the potential of AI agents in 2025 (and don’t get me wrong, it’s really significant), but there’s a crucial detail that keeps getting overlooked: the gap between current capabilities and practical reliability.

Here’s the reality check that most predictions miss: AI agents currently operate at about 80% accuracy (according to Microsoft’s AI CEO). Sounds impressive, right? But here’s the thing – for businesses and users to actually trust these systems with meaningful tasks, we need 99% reliability. That’s not just a 19% gap – it’s the difference between an interesting tech demo and a business-critical tool.

This matters because it completely changes how we should think about AI agents in 2025. While major players like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are pouring billions into development, they’re all facing the same fundamental challenge – making them work reliably enough that you can actually trust them with your business processes.

Think about it this way: Would you trust an assistant who gets things wrong 20% of the time? Probably not. But would you trust one who makes a mistake only 1% of the time, especially if they could handle repetitive tasks across your entire workflow? That’s a completely different conversation.


Why 2025 will be the year of AI orchestration — from venturebeat.com by Emilia David|

In the tech world, we like to label periods as the year of (insert milestone here). This past year (2024) was a year of broader experimentation in AI and, of course, agentic use cases.

As 2025 opens, VentureBeat spoke to industry analysts and IT decision-makers to see what the year might bring. For many, 2025 will be the year of agents, when all the pilot programs, experiments and new AI use cases converge into something resembling a return on investment.

In addition, the experts VentureBeat spoke to see 2025 as the year AI orchestration will play a bigger role in the enterprise. Organizations plan to make management of AI applications and agents much more straightforward.

Here are some themes we expect to see more in 2025.


Predictions For AI In 2025: Entrepreneurs Look Ahead — from forbes.com by Jodie Cook

AI agents take charge
Jérémy Grandillon, CEO of TC9 – AI Allbound Agency, said “Today, AI can do a lot, but we don’t trust it to take actions on our behalf. This will change in 2025. Be ready to ask your AI assistant to book a Uber ride for you.” Start small with one agent handling one task. Build up to an army.

“If 2024 was agents everywhere, then 2025 will be about bringing those agents together in networks and systems,” said Nicholas Holland, vice president of AI at Hubspot. “Micro agents working together to accomplish larger bodies of work, and marketplaces where humans can ‘hire’ agents to work alongside them in hybrid teams. Before long, we’ll be saying, ‘there’s an agent for that.'”

Voice becomes default
Stop typing and start talking. Adam Biddlecombe, head of brand at Mindstream, predicts a shift in how we interact with AI. “2025 will be the year that people start talking with AI,” he said. “The majority of people interact with ChatGPT and other tools in the text format, and a lot of emphasis is put on prompting skills.

Biddlecombe believes, “With Apple’s ChatGPT integration for Siri, millions of people will start talking to ChatGPT. This will make AI so much more accessible and people will start to use it for very simple queries.”

Get ready for the next wave of advancements in AI. AGI arrives early, AI agents take charge, and voice becomes the norm. Video creation gets easy, AI embeds everywhere, and one-person billion-dollar companies emerge.



These 4 graphs show where AI is already impacting jobs — from fastcompany.com by Brandon Tucker
With a 200% increase in two years, the data paints a vivid picture of how AI technology is reshaping the workforce. 

To better understand the types of roles that AI is impacting, ZoomInfo’s research team looked to its proprietary database of professional contacts for answers. The platform, which detects more than 1.5 million personnel changes per day, revealed a dramatic increase in AI-related job titles since 2022. With a 200% increase in two years, the data paints a vivid picture of how AI technology is reshaping the workforce.

Why does this shift in AI titles matter for every industry?

 

AI educators are coming to this school – and it’s part of a trend — from techradar.com by Eric Hal Schwartz
Two hours of lessons, zero teachers

  • An Arizona charter school will use AI instead of human teachers for two hours a day on academic lessons.
  • The AI will customize lessons in real-time to match each student’s needs.
  • The company has only tested this idea at private schools before but claims it hugely increases student academic success.

One school in Arizona is trying out a new educational model built around AI and a two-hour school day. When Arizona’s Unbound Academy opens, the only teachers will be artificial intelligence algorithms in a perfect utopia or dystopia, depending on your point of view.


AI in Instructional Design: reflections on 2024 & predictions for 2025 — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
Aka, four new year’s resolutions for the AI-savvy instructional designer.


Debating About AI: A Free Comprehensive Guide to the Issues — from stefanbauschard.substack.com by Stefan Bauschard

In order to encourage and facilitate debate on key controversies related to AI, I put together this free 130+ page guide to the main arguments and ideas related to the controversies.


Universities need to step up their AGI game — from futureofbeinghuman.com by Andrew Maynard
As Sam Altman and others push toward a future where AI changes everything, universities need to decide if they’re going to be leaders or bystanders in helping society navigate advanced AI transitions

And because of this, I think there’s a unique opportunity for universities (research universities in particular) to up their game and play a leadership role in navigating the coming advanced AI transition.

Of course, there are already a number of respected university-based initiatives that are working on parts of the challenge. Stanford HAI (Human-centered Artificial Intelligence) is one that stands out, as does the Leverhulm Center for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge, and the Center for Governance of AI at the University of Oxford. But these and other initiatives are barely scratching the surface of what is needed to help successfully navigate advanced AI transitions.

If universities are to be leaders rather than bystanders in ensuring human flourishing in an age of AI, there’s an urgent need for bolder and more creative forward-looking initiatives that support research, teaching, thought leadership, and knowledge mobilization, at the intersection of advanced AI and all aspects of what it means to thrive and grow as a species.


 

 

How AI Is Changing Education: The Year’s Top 5 Stories — from edweek.org by Alyson Klein

Ever since a new revolutionary version of chat ChatGPT became operable in late 2022, educators have faced several complex challenges as they learn how to navigate artificial intelligence systems.

Education Week produced a significant amount of coverage in 2024 exploring these and other critical questions involving the understanding and use of AI.

Here are the five most popular stories that Education Week published in 2024 about AI in schools.


What’s next with AI in higher education? — from msn.com by Science X Staff

Dr. Lodge said there are five key areas the higher education sector needs to address to adapt to the use of AI:

1. Teach ‘people’ skills as well as tech skills
2. Help all students use new tech
3. Prepare students for the jobs of the future
4. Learn to make sense of complex information
5. Universities to lead the tech change


5 Ways Teachers Can Use NotebookLM Today — from classtechtips.com by Dr. Monica Burns

 


AI in 2024: Insights From our 5 Million Readers — from linkedin.com by Generative AI

Checking the Pulse: The Impact of AI on Everyday Lives
So, what exactly did our users have to say about how AI transformed their lives this year?
.

Top 2024 Developments in AI

  1. Video Generation…
  2. AI Employees…
  3. Open Source Advancements…

Getting ready for 2025: your AI team members (Gift lesson 3/3) — from flexos.com by Daan van Rossum

And that’s why today, I’ll tell you exactly which AI tools I’ve recommended for the top 5 use cases to almost 200 business leaders who took the Lead with AI course.

1. Email Management: Simplifying Communication with AI

  • Microsoft Copilot for Outlook. …
  • Gemini AI for Gmail. …
  • Grammarly. …

2. Meeting Management: Maximize Your Time

  • Otter.ai. …
  • Copilot for Microsoft Teams. …
  • Other AI Meeting Assistants. Zoom AI Companion, Granola, and Fathom

3. Research: Streamlining Information Gathering

  • ChatGPT. …
  • Perplexity. …
  • Consensus. …

…plus several more items and tools that were mentioned by Daan.

 

60 Minutes Overtime
Sal Khan wants an AI tutor for every student: here’s how it’s working at an Indiana high school — from cbsnews.com by Anderson Cooper, Aliza Chasan, Denise Schrier Cetta, and Katie Brennan

“I mean, that’s what I’ll always want for my own children and, frankly, for anyone’s children,” Khan said. “And the hope here is that we can use artificial intelligence and other technologies to amplify what a teacher can do so they can spend more time standing next to a student, figuring them out, having a person-to-person connection.”

“After a week you start to realize, like, how you can use it,” Brockman said. “That’s been one of the really important things about working with Sal and his team, to really figure out what’s the right way to sort of bring this to parents and to teachers and to classrooms and to do that in a way…so that the students really learn and aren’t just, you know, asking for the answers and that the parents can have oversight and the teachers can be involved in that process.”


Nectir lets teachers tailor AI chatbots to provide their students with 24/7 educational support — from techcrunch.com by Lauren Forristal

More than 100 colleges and high schools are turning to a new AI tool called Nectir, allowing teachers to create a personalized learning partner that’s trained on their syllabi, textbooks, and assignments to help students with anything from questions related to their coursework to essay writing assistance and even future career guidance.

With Nectir, teachers can create an AI assistant tailored to their specific needs, whether for a single class, a department, or the entire campus. There are various personalization options available, enabling teachers to establish clear boundaries for the AI’s interactions, such as programming the assistant to assist only with certain subjects or responding in a way that aligns with their teaching style.

“It’ll really be that customized learning partner. Every single conversation that a student has with any of their assistants will then be fed into that student profile for them to be able to see based on what the AI thinks, what should I be doing next, not only in my educational journey, but in my career journey,” Ghai said. 


How Will AI Influence Higher Ed in 2025? — from insidehighered.com by Kathryn Palmer
No one knows for sure, but Inside Higher Ed asked seven experts for their predictions.

As the technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, no one knows for sure how AI will influence higher education in 2025. But several experts offered Inside Higher Ed their predictions—and some guidance—for how colleges and universities will have to navigate AI’s potential in the new year.


How A.I. Can Revive a Love of Learning — from nytimes.com by Anant Agarwal
Modern technology offers new possibilities for transforming teaching.

In the short term, A.I. will help teachers create lesson plans, find illustrative examples and generate quizzes tailored to each student. Customized problem sets will serve as tools to combat cheating while A.I. provides instant feedback.

In the longer term, it’s possible to imagine a world where A.I. can ingest rich learner data and create personalized learning paths for students, all within a curriculum established by the teacher. Teachers can continue to be deeply involved in fostering student discussions, guiding group projects and engaging their students, while A.I. handles grading and uses the Socratic method to help students discover answers on their own. Teachers provide encouragement and one-on-one support when needed, using their newfound availability to give students some extra care.

Let’s be clear: A.I. will never replace the human touch that is so vital to education. No algorithm can replicate the empathy, creativity and passion a teacher brings to the classroom. But A.I. can certainly amplify those qualities. It can be our co-pilot, our chief of staff helping us extend our reach and improve our effectiveness.


Dancing with the Devil We Know: OpenAI and the Future of Education — from nickpotkalitsky.substack.com by Nick Potkalitsky
Analyzing OpenAI’s Student Writing Guide and Latest AI Tools

Today, I want to reflect on two recent OpenAI developments that highlight this evolution: their belated publication of advice for students on integrating AI into writing workflows, and last week’s launch of the full GPTo1 Pro version. When OpenAI released their student writing guide, there were plenty of snarky comments about how this guidance arrives almost a year after they thoroughly disrupted the educational landscape. Fair enough – I took my own side swipes initially. But let’s look at what they’re actually advising, because the details matter more than the timing.


Tutor CoPilot: A Human-AI Approach for Scaling Real-Time Expertise — from studentsupportaccelerator.org by Rose E.Wang, Ana T. Ribeiro, Carly D. Robinson, Susanna Loeb, and Dora Demszky


Pandemic, Politics, Pre-K & More: 12 Charts That Defined Education in 2024 — from the74million.org
From the spread of AI to the limits of federal COVID aid, these research findings captured the world of education this year.

Tutoring programs exploded in the last five years as states and school districts searched for ways to counter plummeting achievement during COVID. But the cost of providing supplemental instruction to tens of millions of students can be eye-watering, even as the results seem to taper off as programs serve more students.

That’s where artificial intelligence could prove a decisive advantage. A report circulated in October by the National Student Support Accelerator found that an AI-powered tutoring assistant significantly improved the performance of hundreds of tutors by prompting them with new ways to explain concepts to students. With the help of the tool, dubbed Tutor CoPilot, students assigned to the weakest tutors began posting academic results nearly equal to those assigned to the strongest. And the cost to run the program was just $20 per pupil.


On Capacity, Sustainability, And Attention — from marcwatkins.substack.com by Marc Watkins

Faculty must have the time and support necessary to come to terms with this new technology and that requires us to change how we view professional development in higher education and K-12. We cannot treat generative AI as a one-off problem that can be solved by a workshop, an invited talk, or a course policy discussion. Generative AI in education has to be viewed as a continuum. Faculty need a myriad of support options each semester:

  • Course buyouts
  • Fellowships
  • Learning communities
  • Reading groups
  • AI Institutes and workshops
  • Funding to explore the scholarship of teaching and learning around generative AI

New in 2025 and What Edleaders Should Do About It — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark and Mason Pashia

Key Points

  • Education leaders should focus on integrating AI literacy, civic education, and work-based learning to equip students for future challenges and opportunities.
  • Building social capital and personalized learning environments will be crucial for student success in a world increasingly influenced by AI and decentralized power structures.
 

1-800-CHAT-GPT—12 Days of OpenAI: Day 10

Per The Rundown: OpenAI just launched a surprising new way to access ChatGPT — through an old-school 1-800 number & also rolled out a new WhatsApp integration for global users during Day 10 of the company’s livestream event.


How Agentic AI is Revolutionizing Customer Service — from customerthink.com by Devashish Mamgain

Agentic AI represents a significant evolution in artificial intelligence, offering enhanced autonomy and decision-making capabilities beyond traditional AI systems. Unlike conventional AI, which requires human instructions, agentic AI can independently perform complex tasks, adapt to changing environments, and pursue goals with minimal human intervention.

This makes it a powerful tool across various industries, especially in the customer service function. To understand it better, let’s compare AI Agents with non-AI agents.

Characteristics of Agentic AI

    • Autonomy: Achieves complex objectives without requiring human collaboration.
    • Language Comprehension: Understands nuanced human speech and text effectively.
    • Rationality: Makes informed, contextual decisions using advanced reasoning engines.
    • Adaptation: Adjusts plans and goals in dynamic situations.
    • Workflow Optimization: Streamlines and organizes business workflows with minimal oversight.

Clio: A system for privacy-preserving insights into real-world AI use — from anthropic.com

How, then, can we research and observe how our systems are used while rigorously maintaining user privacy?

Claude insights and observations, or “Clio,” is our attempt to answer this question. Clio is an automated analysis tool that enables privacy-preserving analysis of real-world language model use. It gives us insights into the day-to-day uses of claude.ai in a way that’s analogous to tools like Google Trends. It’s also already helping us improve our safety measures. In this post—which accompanies a full research paper—we describe Clio and some of its initial results.


Evolving tools redefine AI video — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper
Google’s Veo 2, Kling 1.6, Pika 2.0 & more

AI video continues to surpass expectations
The AI video generation space has evolved dramatically in recent weeks, with several major players introducing groundbreaking tools.

Here’s a comprehensive look at the current landscape:

  • Veo 2…
  • Pika 2.0…
  • Runway’s Gen-3…
  • Luma AI Dream Machine…
  • Hailuo’s MiniMax…
  • OpenAI’s Sora…
  • Hunyuan Video by Tencent…

There are several other video models and platforms, including …

 

Where to start with AI agents: An introduction for COOs — from fortune.com by Ganesh Ayyar

Picture your enterprise as a living ecosystem, where surging market demand instantly informs staffing decisions, where a new vendor’s onboarding optimizes your emissions metrics, where rising customer engagement reveals product opportunities. Now imagine if your systems could see these connections too! This is the promise of AI agents — an intelligent network that thinks, learns, and works across your entire enterprise.

Today, organizations operate in artificial silos. Tomorrow, they could be fluid and responsive. The transformation has already begun. The question is: will your company lead it?

The journey to agent-enabled operations starts with clarity on business objectives. Leaders should begin by mapping their business’s critical processes. The most pressing opportunities often lie where cross-functional handoffs create friction or where high-value activities are slowed by system fragmentation. These pain points become the natural starting points for your agent deployment strategy.


Create podcasts in minutes — from elevenlabs.io by Eleven Labs
Now anyone can be a podcast producer


Top AI tools for business — from theneuron.ai


This week in AI: 3D from images, video tools, and more — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper
From 3D worlds to consistent characters, explore this week’s AI trends

Another busy AI news week, so I organized it into categories:

  • Image to 3D
  • AI Video
  • AI Image Models & Tools
  • AI Assistants / LLMs
  • AI Creative Workflow: Luma AI Boards

Want to speak Italian? Microsoft AI can make it sound like you do. — this is a gifted article from The Washington Post;
A new AI-powered interpreter is expected to simulate speakers’ voices in different languages during Microsoft Teams meetings.

Artificial intelligence has already proved that it can sound like a human, impersonate individuals and even produce recordings of someone speaking different languages. Now, a new feature from Microsoft will allow video meeting attendees to hear speakers “talk” in a different language with help from AI.


What Is Agentic AI?  — from blogs.nvidia.com by Erik Pounds
Agentic AI uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems.

The next frontier of artificial intelligence is agentic AI, which uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems. And it’s set to enhance productivity and operations across industries.

Agentic AI systems ingest vast amounts of data from multiple sources to independently analyze challenges, develop strategies and execute tasks like supply chain optimization, cybersecurity vulnerability analysis and helping doctors with time-consuming tasks.


 

How AI is transforming learning for dyslexic students — from eschoolnews.com by Samay Bhojwani, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
As schools continue to adopt AI-driven tools, educators can close the accessibility gap and help dyslexic students thrive

Many traditional methods lack customization and don’t empower students to fully engage with content on their terms. Every dyslexic student experiences challenges differently, so a more personalized approach is essential for fostering comprehension, engagement, and academic growth.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly recognized for its potential to transform educational accessibility. By analyzing individual learning patterns, AI-powered tools can tailor content to meet each student’s specific needs. For dyslexic students, this can mean summarizing complex texts, providing auditory support, or even visually structuring information in ways that aid comprehension.


NotebookLM How-to Guide 2024 — from ai-supremacy.com by Michael Spencer and Alex McFarland
With Audio Version | A popular guide reloaded.

In this guide, I’ll show you:

  1. How to use the new advanced audio customization features
  2. Two specific workflows for synthesizing information (research papers and YouTube videos)
  3. Pro tips for maximizing results with any type of content
  4. Common pitfalls to avoid (learned these the hard way)

The State of Instructional Design 2024: A Field on the Brink of Disruption? — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
My hot takes from a global survey I ran with Synthesia

As I mentioned on LinkedIn, earlier this week Synthesia published the results of a global survey that we ran together the state of instructional design in 2024.


Boundless Socratic Learning: Google DeepMind’s Vision for AI That Learns Without Limits — from by Giorgio Fazio

Google DeepMind researchers have unveiled a groundbreaking framework called Boundless Socratic Learning (BSL), a paradigm shift in artificial intelligence aimed at enabling systems to self-improve through structured language-based interactions. This approach could mark a pivotal step toward the elusive goal of artificial superintelligence (ASI), where AI systems drive their own development with minimal human input.

The promise of Boundless Socratic Learning lies in its ability to catalyze a shift from human-supervised AI to systems that evolve and improve autonomously. While significant challenges remain, the introduction of this framework represents a step toward the long-term goal of open-ended intelligence, where AI is not just a tool but a partner in discovery.


5 courses to take when starting out a career in Agentic AI — from techloy.com by David Adubiina
This will help you join the early train of experts who are using AI agents to solve real world problems.

This surge in demand is creating new opportunities for professionals equipped with the right skills. If you’re considering a career in this innovative field, the following five courses will provide a solid foundation when starting a career in Agentic AI.



 

AI Tutors: Hype or Hope for Education? — from educationnext.org by John Bailey and John Warner
In a new book, Sal Khan touts the potential of artificial intelligence to address lagging student achievement. Our authors weigh in.

In Salman Khan’s new book, Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That’s a Good Thing) (Viking, 2024), the Khan Academy founder predicts that AI will transform education by providing every student with a virtual personalized tutor at an affordable cost. Is Khan right? Is radically improved achievement for all students within reach at last? If so, what sorts of changes should we expect to see, and when? If not, what will hold back the AI revolution that Khan foresees? John Bailey, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, endorses Khan’s vision and explains the profound impact that AI technology is already making in education. John Warner, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune and former editor for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, makes the case that all the hype about AI tutoring is, as Macbeth quips, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

 

2024-11-22: The Race to the TopDario Amodei on AGI, Risks, and the Future of Anthropic — from emergentbehavior.co by Prakash (Ate-a-Pi)

Risks on the Horizon: ASL Levels
The two key risks Dario is concerned about are:

a) cyber, bio, radiological, nuclear (CBRN)
b) model autonomy

These risks are captured in Anthropic’s framework for understanding AI Safety Levels (ASL):

1. ASL-1: Narrow-task AI like Deep Blue (no autonomy, minimal risk).
2. ASL-2: Current systems like ChatGPT/Claude, which lack autonomy and don’t pose significant risks beyond information already accessible via search engines.
3. ASL-3: Agents arriving soon (potentially next year) that can meaningfully assist non-state actors in dangerous activities like cyber or CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) attacks. Security and filtering are critical at this stage to prevent misuse.
4. ASL-4: AI smart enough to evade detection, deceive testers, and assist state actors with dangerous projects. AI will be strong enough that you would want to use the model to do anything dangerous. Mechanistic interpretability becomes crucial for verifying AI behavior.
5. ASL-5: AGI surpassing human intelligence in all domains, posing unprecedented challenges.

Anthropic’s if/then framework ensures proactive responses: if a model demonstrates danger, the team clamps down hard, enforcing strict controls.



Should You Still Learn to Code in an A.I. World? — from nytimes.com by
Coding boot camps once looked like the golden ticket to an economically secure future. But as that promise fades, what should you do? Keep learning, until further notice.

Compared with five years ago, the number of active job postings for software developers has dropped 56 percent, according to data compiled by CompTIA. For inexperienced developers, the plunge is an even worse 67 percent.
“I would say this is the worst environment for entry-level jobs in tech, period, that I’ve seen in 25 years,” said Venky Ganesan, a partner at the venture capital firm Menlo Ventures.

For years, the career advice from everyone who mattered — the Apple chief executive Tim Cook, your mother — was “learn to code.” It felt like an immutable equation: Coding skills + hard work = job.

Now the math doesn’t look so simple.

Also see:

AI builds apps in 2 mins flat — where the Neuron mentions this excerpt about Lovable:

There’s a new coding startup in town, and it just MIGHT have everybody else shaking in their boots (we’ll qualify that in a sec, don’t worry).

It’s called Lovable, the “world’s first AI fullstack engineer.”

Lovable does all of that by itself. Tell it what you want to build in plain English, and it creates everything you need. Want users to be able to log in? One click. Need to store data? One click. Want to accept payments? You get the idea.

Early users are backing up these claims. One person even launched a startup that made Product Hunt’s top 10 using just Lovable.

As for us, we made a Wordle clone in 2 minutes with one prompt. Only edit needed? More words in the dictionary. It’s like, really easy y’all.


When to chat with AI (and when to let it work) — from aiwithallie.beehiiv.com by Allie K. Miller

Re: some ideas on how to use Notebook LM:

  • Turn your company’s annual report into an engaging podcast
  • Create an interactive FAQ for your product manual
  • Generate a timeline of your industry’s history from multiple sources
  • Produce a study guide for your online course content
  • Develop a Q&A system for your company’s knowledge base
  • Synthesize research papers into digestible summaries
  • Create an executive content briefing from multiple competitor blog posts
  • Generate a podcast discussing the key points of a long-form research paper

Introducing conversation practice: AI-powered simulations to build soft skills — from codesignal.com by Albert Sahakyan

From DSC:
I have to admit I’m a bit suspicious here, as the “conversation practice” product seems a bit too scripted at times, but I post it because the idea of using AI to practice soft skills development makes a great deal of sense:


 

Introducing Copilot Actions, new agents, and tools to empower IT teams — from microsoft.com by Jared Spataro

[On November 19th] at Microsoft Ignite 2024, we’re accelerating our ambition to empower every employee with Copilot as a personal assistant and to transform every business process with agents built in Microsoft Copilot Studio.

Announcements include:

  • Copilot Actions in Microsoft 365 Copilot to help you automate everyday repetitive tasks.
  • New agents in Microsoft 365 to unlock SharePoint knowledge, provide real-time language interpretation in Microsoft Teams meetings, and automate employee self-service.
  • The Copilot Control System to help IT professionals confidently manage Copilot and agents securely.

These announcements build on our wave 2 momentum, including the new autonomous agent capabilities that we announced in October 2024.

Per the Rundown AI:
By integrating AI agents directly into Microsoft’s billion-plus users’ daily workflows, this release could normalize agentic AI faster than any previous rollout. Just as users now reach for specific apps or plugins to solve particular problems, specialized agents could soon become the natural first stop for getting work done.

Along these lines, also see:

AI agents — what they are, and how they’ll change the way we work — from news.microsoft.com by Susanna Ray

An agent takes the power of generative AI a step further, because instead of just assisting you, agents can work alongside you or even on your behalf. Agents can do a range of things, from responding to questions to more complicated or multistep assignments. What sets them apart from a personal assistant is that they can be tailored to have a particular expertise.

For example, you could create an agent to know everything about your company’s product catalog so it can draft detailed responses to customer questions or automatically compile product details for an upcoming presentation.

Microsoft pitches AI ‘agents’ that can perform tasks on their own at Ignite 2024 — from techxplore.com
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told customers at a conference in Chicago on Tuesday that the company is teaching a new set of artificial intelligence tools how to “act on our behalf across our work and life.”


From DSC:
I am not trying to push all things AI. There are serious concerns that I and others have with agents and other AI-based technologies especially:

  • When competitive juices get going and such forces throw people and companies into a sort of an AI arms race, and
  • When many people haven’t yet obtained the wisdom of reflecting on things like “just because we CAN build this doesn’t mean we SHOULD build it”, or
  • When governments seek to be the leader of AI due to military applications (and yes, I’m looking at the U.S. Federal Government especially here)
  • Etc, etc. 

But there are also areas where I’m more hopeful and positive about AI-related technologies — such as providing personalized learning and productivity tools (like those from Microsoft above).

 

Denmark’s Gefion: The AI supercomputer that puts society first — from blog.aiport.tech by Daniel Nest
Can it help us reimagine what “AI success” looks like?

In late October 2024, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang and Denmark’s King Frederik X symbolically plugged in the country’s new AI supercomputer, Gefion.

  1. Societal impact vs. monetization
  2. Public-private cooperation vs. venture capital
  3. Powered by renewable energy
 

What DICE does in this posting will be available 24x7x365 in the future [Christian]

From DSC:
First of all, when you look at the following posting:


What Top Tech Skills Should You Learn for 2025? — from dice.com by Nick Kolakowski


…you will see that they outline which skills you should consider mastering in 2025 if you want to stay on top of the latest career opportunities. They then list more information about the skills, how you apply the skills, and WHERE to get those skills.

I assert that in the future, people will be able to see this information on a 24x7x365 basis.

  • Which jobs are in demand?
  • What skills do I need to do those jobs?
  • WHERE do I get/develop those skills?


And that last part (about the WHERE do I develop those skills) will pull from many different institutions, people, companies, etc.

BUT PEOPLE are the key! Oftentimes, we need to — and prefer to — learn with others!


 

Five key issues to consider when adopting an AI-based legal tech — from legalfutures.co.uk by Mark Hughes

As more of our familiar legal resources have started to embrace a generative AI overhaul, and new players have come to the market, there are some key issues that your law firm needs to consider when adopting an AI-based legal tech.

  • Licensing
  • Data protection
  • The data sets
  • …and others

Knowable Introduces Gen AI Tool It Says Will Revolutionize How Companies Interact with their Contracts — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi

Knowable, a legal technology company specializing in helping organizations bring order and organization to their executed agreements, has announced Ask Knowable, a suite of generative AI-powered tools aimed at transforming how legal teams interact with and understand what is in their contracts.

Released today as a commercial preview and set to launch for general availability in March 2025, the feature marks a significant step forward in leveraging large language models to address the complexities of contract management, the company says.


The Global Legal Post teams up with LexisNexis to explore challenges and opportunities of Gen AI adoption — from globallegalpost.com by
Series of articles will investigate key criteria to consider when investing in Gen AI

The Global Legal Post has teamed up with LexisNexis to help inform readers’ decision-making in the selection of generative AI (Gen AI) legal research solutions.

The Generative AI Legal Research Hub in association with LexisNexis will host a series of articles exploring the key criteria law firms and legal departments should consider when seeking to harness the power of Gen AI to improve the delivery of legal services.


Leveraging AI to Grow Your Legal Practice — from americanbar.org

Summary

  • AI-powered tools like chat and scheduling meet clients’ demand for instant, personalized service, improving engagement and satisfaction.
  • Firms using AI see up to a 30% increase in lead conversion, cutting client acquisition costs and maximizing marketing investments.
  • AI streamlines processes, speeds up response times, and enhances client engagement—driving growth and long-term client retention.

How a tech GC views AI-enabled efficiencies and regulation — from legaldive.com by Justin Bachman
PagerDuty’s top in-house counsel sees legal AI tools as a way to scale resources without adding headcount while focusing lawyers on their high-value work.


Innovations in Legal Practice: How Tim Billick’s Firm Stays Ahead with AI and Technology — from techtimes.com by Elena McCormick

Enhancing Client Service through Technology
Beyond internal efficiency, Billick’s firm utilizes technology to improve client communication and engagement. By adopting client-facing AI tools, such as chatbots for routine inquiries and client portals for real-time updates, Practus makes legal processes more transparent and accessible to its clients. According to Billick, this responsiveness is essential in IP law, where clients often need quick updates and answers to time-sensitive questions about patents, trademarks, and licensing agreements.

AI-driven client management software is also part of the firm’s toolkit, enabling Billick and his team to track each client’s case progress and share updates efficiently. The firm’s technology infrastructure supports clients from various sectors, including engineering, software development, and consumer products, tailoring case workflows to meet unique needs within each industry. “Clients appreciate having immediate access to their case status, especially in industries where timing is crucial,” Billick shares.


New Generative AI Study Highlights Adoption, Use and Opportunities in the Legal Industry — from prnewswire.com by Relativity

CHICAGO, Nov. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Relativity, a global legal technology company, today announced findings from the IDC InfoBrief, Generative AI in Legal 2024, commissioned by Relativity. The study uncovers the rapid increase of generative AI adoption in the legal field, examining how legal professionals are navigating emerging challenges and seizing opportunities to drive legal innovation.

The international study surveyed attorneys, paralegals, legal operations professionals and legal IT professionals from law firms, corporations and government agencies. Respondents were located in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The data uncovered important trends on how generative AI has impacted the legal industry and how legal professionals will use generative AI in the coming years.

 

The Edtech Insiders Generative AI Map — from edtechinsiders.substack.com by Ben Kornell, Alex Sarlin, Sarah Morin, and Laurence Holt
A market map and database featuring 60+ use cases for GenAI in education and 300+ GenAI powered education tools.


A Student’s Guide to Writing with ChatGPT— from openai.com

Used thoughtfully, ChatGPT can be a powerful tool to help students develop skills of rigorous thinking and clear writing, assisting them in thinking through ideas, mastering complex concepts, and getting feedback on drafts.

There are also ways to use ChatGPT that are counterproductive to learning—like generating an essay instead of writing it oneself, which deprives students of the opportunity to practice, improve their skills, and grapple with the material.

For students committed to becoming better writers and thinkers, here are some ways to use ChatGPT to engage more deeply with the learning process.


Community Colleges Are Rolling Out AI Programs—With a Boost from Big Tech — from workshift.org by Colleen Connolly

The Big Idea: As employers increasingly seek out applicants with AI skills, community colleges are well-positioned to train up the workforce. Partnerships with tech companies, like the AI Incubator Network, are helping some colleges get the resources and funding they need to overhaul programs and create new AI-focused ones.

Along these lines also see:

Practical AI Training — from the-job.beehiiv.com by Paul Fain
Community colleges get help from Big Tech to prepare students for applied AI roles at smaller companies.

Miami Dade and other two-year colleges try to be nimble by offering training for AI-related jobs while focusing on local employers. Also, Intel’s business struggles while the two-year sector wonders if Republicans will cut funds for semiconductor production.


Can One AI Agent Do Everything? How To Redesign Jobs for AI? HR Expertise And A Big Future for L&D. — from joshbersin.com by Josh Bersin

Here’s the AI summary, which is pretty good.

In this conversation, Josh Bersin discusses the evolving landscape of AI platforms, particularly focusing on Microsoft’s positioning and the challenges of creating a universal AI agent. He delves into the complexities of government efficiency, emphasizing the institutional challenges faced in re-engineering government operations.

The conversation also highlights the automation of work tasks and the need for businesses to decompose job functions for better efficiency.

Bersin stresses the importance of expertise in HR, advocating for a shift towards full stack professionals who possess a broad understanding of various HR functions.

Finally, he addresses the impending disruption in Learning and Development (L&D) due to AI advancements, predicting a significant transformation in how L&D professionals will manage knowledge and skills.


 

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian