Was there AI coverage this week?

 There is ALWAYS AI coverage!

• For those considering AI in education, please be sure you've read this NPR piece speaking with Chanea Bond about her making her high school English classroom analog. I'm familiar with Mrs. Bond from social media (here she is on Bluesky), and I've always appreciated how she approaches her teaching, as well as the relationship she clearly has with her students. 
  And in this case, it's one of her students I'm going to quote: 
  

  "Take a second and think about it. Would you rather really grow from an experience of actually doing some work and critically thinking about the things you're writing or talking about, or just taking nothing away from it and just use a robot?"

• Those quoted in the above piece as being pro-AI (and really in just about every article I have read in which educators are arguing that it must be included in schools!) sound exactly like this video from Mike Daniels "It's the future" where the answer to "what does it do?" is...kind of the point.
  
  
  
• This week, Dartmouth discovered that the pro-AI op-ed submitted by a student for their college paper was something the student had been paid by their administration to write, and the administration reviewed the piece prior to its submission. 
  You're not convincing us here, people. 
  
  
• I am currently working my way through the essay "How AI Destroys Institutions" by Woodrow Hartzog  and Jessica Silbey at BU School of Law. The abstract reads as follows: 
  

  Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies encourage cooperation and stability, while also adapting to changing circumstances. The real superpower of institutions is their ability to evolve and adapt within a hierarchy of authority and a framework for roles and rules while maintaining legitimacy in the knowledge produced and the actions taken. Purpose-driven institutions built around transparency, cooperation, and accountability empower individuals to take intellectual risks and challenge the status quo. This happens through the machinations of interpersonal relationships within those institutions, which broaden perspectives and strengthen shared commitment to civic goals. 

  Unfortunately, the affordances of AI systems extinguish these institutional features at every turn. In this essay, we make one simple point: AI systems are built to function in ways that degrade and are likely to destroy our crucial civic institutions. The affordances of AI systems have the effect of eroding expertise, short-circuiting decision-making, and isolating people from each other. These systems are anathema to the kind of evolution, transparency, cooperation, and accountability that give vital institutions their purpose and sustainability. In short, current AI systems are a death sentence for civic institutions, and we should treat them as such.

  As education is foundational to these civic systems everywhere, but particularly in a democracy, we should take this quite seriously before inviting AI in.
  
  
• And the good people at McSweeney's this week brought us this gem: 
  
  
  
  You can find that here.