Google

[Gifted article] Google researchers are fighting the company to tell the world what they know about AI [De Vynck]

On 11/05/2026, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, future, game-changing environment, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, society, surviving, the downsides of how people use tech, trends, UK, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Google researchers are fighting the company to tell the world what they know about AI — from washingtonpost.com by Gerrit De Vynck
Employment contracts deter staff from warning the public about AI risks, current workers said.

Workers inside Google’s artificial intelligence division are pushing executives to release them from non-disparagement agreements, arguing that they must be free to inform the public about the risks of the technology they are working to advance, according to people inside the company.
…
The non-disparagement agreements signed by employees in Britain block them from communicating with the public about the potential impacts of AI, the two current Google workers said. While company officials are now saying that they will not go after former employees who speak out, some staffers are pushing for updated language in existing contracts to provide them with legal certainty.

Are We Sending Young People False Signals About Their Futures? — from workshift.org by Emily M. Dickens and Elissa Salas

For years, we’ve told young people that training + credentials = opportunity. And for many pathways, that’s still true. But an AI-disrupted labor market is forcing us to be uncomfortably honest about what has always been a much more complicated equation.

Mixed Signals
Today’s young people need us to be able to say that we don’t fully know what the future of work looks like. Mixed signals abound. For example, at major tech companies, new graduate and entry-level hiring is down roughly 65% compared to 2019 pre-pandemic levels. So far in 2026, AI has been cited in more than 120K announced job cuts.

On the other hand, major companies including Google and CSX announced plans to hire to meet growth goals. Some of the fastest-growing occupations range across healthcare, skilled trades, and tech. In September, Business Roundtable’s CEO Economic Outlook Index showed a seven-point increase in hiring plans. The messages sent to young people are genuinely contradictory, and we need to help them cut through the noise.

Helping young people develop in this way will require smarter, stronger bridges between the systems that shape our workforce, such as better connecting K-12 classrooms to career pathways, aligning higher education institutions with the evolving job market, and ensuring untapped talent has access to in-demand employment opportunities.

The fourth annual AI in L&D report [Taylor & Vinauskaite]

On 10/19/2026, in adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, communications, communities of practice, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, data related items, emerging technologies, experimentation, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, interactivity, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, multimedia, Open AI, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, skills, tools, training / L&D, UK, United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

In case it’s helpful, here is Donald’s posting on LinkedIn

New tests show that AI can design like an expert Instructional Designer: so what next? [Hardman]

On 10/16/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education, education technology, emerging technologies, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, Open AI, tools, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Here is Phillipa’s posting on LinkedIn.

5 Writing Tools to Get Unstuck [Caplan]

On 10/13/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, education technology, experimentation, Google, ideas, journalism, tools, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, writing, by Daniel Christian

5 Writing Tools to Get Unstuck — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
Dictation, writing sprints, mind maps, AI interviews, and folded paper

The hardest part of writing is the first 10 minutes. Get past that, and momentum kicks in.

Having gotten stuck and unstuck a lot over the past 325 weeks of writing this newsletter, I’ve found a few tricks that help. Pick one to try, and leave a comment to share what you do to get unstuck.

As a little experiment, I’ve made an Unstuck Studio page to accompany this post and to help you get unstuck playfully.

As Daniel Pink explains, starting comes first.

“Action precedes motivation, not the other way around.”

The State of AI Report 2026 — from press.airstreet.com by Nathan Benaich
AI is building AI, physical AI, booming inference, and escalating cyber risks.

For nearly a decade, this report has been a labor of love. My interest in AI began with my PhD in cancer research and computational biology in the early 2010s. Since 2013, I’ve invested in companies building and applying AI to accelerate technological progress. The report is my way of sharing what I’m learning and helping more people understand the research shaping our world.

Every day brings new papers, model releases, and developments in industry and politics. Much of the work goes into deciding what deserves your attention, checking what the evidence supports, debating it with researchers and builders, and explaining why it matters.

How to Improve Your AI Skills [Andrade & Caplan]

On 09/19/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), Open AI, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, skills, tools, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

How to Improve Your AI Skills — from wondertools.substack.com by Frank Andrade and Jeremy Caplan
What to learn next, from prompts to workflows
.

Today I’m sharing a guest post on how to strengthen your AI skills. It’s by Frank Andrade, an AI instructor who has helped thousands of people on Substack master ChatGPT and Claude with beginner-friendly guides and in-depth tutorials.

A Writer’s Toolkit [Tenore Tarpley & Caplan]

On 08/10/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, faculty/staff, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), journalism, Open AI, research, tools, United States, vendors, writing, by Daniel Christian

A Writer’s Toolkit — from wondertools.substack.com by Mallary Tenore Tarpley and Jeremy Caplan
Useful tools for every stage

Per Jeremy Caplan: My friend and colleague Mallary Tenore Tarpley writes an excellent newsletter, Write at the Edge, with helpful writing tips and best practices. She’s a professor, journalist, and author who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other outlets. She recently published an important debut book, Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery.

Mallary recently interviewed me about writing tools. She wrote up a summary of our conversation, highlighting the tools I talked about. I’m turning the rest of this post over to her summary.

Employees from the world’s biggest AI companies want the US to be ready to slow AI development [Gold]

On 08/10/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, emerging technologies, Facebook / Meta Platforms, Google, legislatures / government / legal, Open AI, platforms, policy, the downsides of how people use tech, by Daniel Christian

Employees from the world’s biggest AI companies want the US to be ready to slow AI development — from cnn.com by Hadas Gold

Top staffers from the biggest AI and technology companies urged the US government to slow the pace of artificial intelligence development so that safety and security measures can catch up in an open letter.

The US government should support an international effort to develop tools that can “deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development,” according to the letter.

More than 1,000 employees from frontier AI companies signed the letter, including the chief scientist of OpenAI, one of the ChatGPT developer’s original cofounders, some of Anthropic’s cofoundersand vice presidents at Meta, Google and others.

The letter comes on the heels of major advancements and burgeoning threats from rapidly developing AI systems. OpenAI disclosed last week that two of its test models escaped a lab environment, bypassed its systems to gain access to the open internet and hacked a different company’s internal system.

The image model race just split into four lanes –> find which model fits your work [Cooper]

On 07/22/2026, in art, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, creativity, design, digital video, emerging technologies, experimentation, Google, graphics, platforms, tools, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

The image model race just split into four lanes –> find which model fits your work — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather B. Cooper

In today’s edition:

Stop asking which image model is “best” – the top 4
Seedream 5.0 Pro’s layer trick
Image & Video Prompts

I underestimated this NotebookLM feature until it completely changed how I study [Sood]

On 07/15/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Google, productivity / tips and tricks, tools, by Daniel Christian

I underestimated this NotebookLM feature until it completely changed how I study — from digitaltrends.com by Shimul Sood

That’s exactly where Mind Maps changed things for me.

In a matter of seconds, NotebookLM analyzed everything I’d uploaded and turned it into a visual map of the topic. Instead of facing a wall of documents, I saw one main idea branching into the key themes, with each of those breaking down into smaller concepts. Before I’d properly read a single source, I already understood how everything connected. That completely changed the way I studied. Rather than asking, “Where do I even start?” I had a clear roadmap showing me what to tackle first, what could wait until later, and how each piece fit into the bigger picture.

Looking back, it’s funny that the feature I ignored for so long is now the one I use first. I still love NotebookLM’s summaries and Audio Overview — they’re great for quickly understanding what’s in your documents. But Mind Maps do something different. They help you understand how everything fits together before you even begin studying. That one change has made a bigger difference than I expected. Instead of diving into a stack of PDFs and hoping I eventually make sense of them, I start with the map. Within a minute, I know the main ideas, how they’re connected, and where I should begin. It makes the whole learning process feel less overwhelming and a lot more structured.

Also recently from Shimul Sood:

Claude diagnosed my washing machine problem in minutes, and it didn’t cost me a thing — from digitaltrends.com

Two years ago, AI broke assessment. Now, it’s helping us to reinvent it. — from linkedin.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman

Also from Dr. Hardman, see:

A new study shows AI helped deliver 1.5 years of maths progress in 8 weeks — here’s how. — from linkedin.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman

…a new study shows AI helped deliver 1.5 years of maths progress in 8 weeks — here’s how.

Google DeepMind just shared the results of a randomised trial involving 1,763 students. Half used Gemini’s “Guided Learning” to learn maths; half didn’t.

The result: the group working with AI gained the equivalent of 1.2 to 1.7 years of extra progress compared to those who didn’t.

It’s tempting to read this as “Gemini’s Guided Learning mode works!” But the key point here is that Gemini didn’t work alone….

Look closer, and what made the difference wasn’t just the tech — it was a great teacher making expert use of it.

Pinpoint, Explained | A guide to Google’s free tool, now open to all [Caplan]

On 06/05/2026, in adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, data related items, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, education, education technology, faculty/staff, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, journalism, K-12 related, languages and translation, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, library / librarians, research, teaching & learning, tools, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Pinpoint, Explained — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
A guide to Google’s free tool, now open to all

.Jeremy prompted ChatGPT to generate illustrations in his post.

.

Learn about Pinpoint— from support.google.com

Pinpoint is an AI-powered research platform designed to help journalists and academics analyze large collections of documents. With Pinpoint, you can:

Analyze massive collections: Easily search, filter, transcribe and organize thousands of documents, including PDFs, images, and audio files.
Leverage generative AI: Use Gemini’s capabilities to answer research questions together with supporting evidence found in your documents.
Foster collaborative research: share your work with colleagues and tackle large scale projects as a team. You can also publicly share – supporting community-driven research.

For assistance with Pinpoint, please consult our Community Forum or you can contact our support team.

This $10K AI School Promises to Future-Proof Your Career [Urwin]

On 05/12/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, accessibility / UDL, Alternatives, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, experimentation, faculty/staff, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, Microsoft, pace of change, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, real-world assignments, reinvent, skills, staying relevant, student-related, teaching online, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

This $10K AI School Promises to Future-Proof Your Career — from builtin.com by Matthew Urwin
Khan Academy, TED and ETS are starting a new program to equip students and professionals with the skills to thrive in an increasingly AI-driven economy. Here’s what you need to know.

Summary: The Khan TED Institute is a higher-education program that will teach students and workers how to use AI through interactive learning. The program’s AI-centric curriculum is an unproven approach, though, casting doubt on whether it will actually improve learning outcomes and career prospects.

Higher education might be on the verge of a radical overhaul to bring it up to speed in the age of artificial intelligence. At the TED2026 conference, Khan Academy, TED and ETS announced that they’re partnering to establish the Khan TED Institute — a new program that reorients the college curriculum around AI. By joining forces, the education technology trio aims to develop an alternative to traditional universities that better tracks student progress, teaches more relevant skills and provides a more personalized learning experience.

Accessibility is another major tenet of the Khan TED Institute. Its virtual nature allows anyone with an internet connection to participate in the program and makes it easier for students to move at their preferred pace. And because its curriculum prioritizes competency over course credits, advanced learners can complete the program in a shorter period. Time isn’t the only thing students can save on, either: The Institute promises a bachelor’s degree for less than $10,000, offering a much more affordable alternative to the typical four-year degree.

From DSC:
Faculty senates don’t do well with this pace of change. But to their credit, few organizations can begin to deal with this pace of change.

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