Organizations are starting to make organizational changes designed to generate future value from gen AI, and large companies are leading the way. The latest McKinsey Global Survey on AI finds that organizations are beginning to take steps that drive bottom-line impact—for example, redesigning workflows as they deploy gen AI and putting senior leaders in critical roles, such as overseeing AI governance. The findings also show that organizations are working to mitigate a growing set of gen-AI-related risks and are hiring for new AI-related roles while they retrain employees to participate in AI deployment. Companies with at least $500 million in annual revenue are changing more quickly than smaller organizations.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Perspectives of Academic Staff on Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Exploring Areas of Relevance (Provisionally accepted) - Dana-Kristin Mah, et al; Frontiers
Despite the recent increase in research on artificial intelligence in education (AIED), studies investigating the perspectives of academic staff and the implications for future-oriented teaching at higher education institutions remain scarce. This exploratory study provides initial insight into the perspectives of 112 academic staff by focusing on three aspects considered relevant for sustainable, future-oriented teaching in higher education in the age of AI: instructional design, domain specificity, and ethics. The results indicate that participants placed the greatest importance on AIED ethics. Furthermore, participants indicated a strong interest in (mandatory) professional development on AI and more comprehensive institutional support.
TxAgent: An AI agent for therapeutic reasoning across a universe of tools - Shanghua Gao, et al; Zitniklab
Precision therapeutics require multimodal adaptive models that generate personalized treatment recommendations. We introduce TxAgent, an AI agent that leverages multi-step reasoning and real-time biomedical knowledge retrieval across a toolbox of 211 tools to analyze drug interactions, contraindications, and patient-specific treatment strategies. TxAgent evaluates how drugs interact at molecular, pharmacokinetic, and clinical levels, identifies contraindications based on patient comorbidities and concurrent medications, and tailors treatment strategies to individual patient characteristics, including age, genetic factors, and disease progression. TxAgent retrieves and synthesizes evidence from multiple biomedical sources, assesses interactions between drugs and patient conditions, and refines treatment recommendations through iterative reasoning. It selects tools based on task objectives and executes structured function calls to solve therapeutic tasks that require clinical reasoning and cross-source validation. The ToolUniverse consolidates 211 tools from trusted sources, including all US FDA-approved drugs since 1939 and validated clinical insights from Open Targets.
Monday, March 24, 2025
Powerful A.I. Is Coming. We’re Not Ready. - Kevin Roose, NY Times
I believe that over the past several years, A.I. systems have started surpassing humans in a number of domains — math, coding and medical diagnosis, just to name a few — and that they’re getting better every day. I believe that very soon — probably in 2026 or 2027, but possibly as soon as this year — one or more A.I. companies will claim they’ve created an artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., which is usually defined as something like “a general-purpose A.I. system that can do almost all cognitive tasks a human can do.” I believe that when A.G.I. is announced, there will be debates over definitions and arguments about whether or not it counts as “real” A.G.I., but that these mostly won’t matter, because the broader point — that we are losing our monopoly on human-level intelligence, and transitioning to a world with very powerful A.I. systems in it — will be true.
Online Education Market CAGR to be at 20.62% By 2034 | Revolutionizing Learning in the Digital Age - Market Research Future
The online education market has witnessed exponential growth in recent years, driven by technological advancements, increasing internet penetration, and the growing demand for flexible learning solutions. The shift towards digital learning has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced educational institutions, businesses, and individuals to adopt remote learning models. Online education encompasses various segments, including K-12 learning, higher education, corporate training, and professional skill development. E-learning platforms provide access to a wide range of courses, interactive content, and virtual classrooms, enabling learners to gain knowledge at their own pace. The market is further fueled by the rise of mobile learning, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tutoring systems, and gamification strategies that enhance user engagement. Additionally, affordability and accessibility make online education an attractive alternative to traditional education systems, expanding its global reach.
Navigating the landscape of AI literacy education: insights from a decade of research (2014–2024) - Yuqin Yang, et al; Nature
This study systematically selected 335 relevant articles from databases, including Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, and Science Direct, following PRISMA guidelines. Our methodology involved keyword co-occurrence mapping to trace the development paths and thematic evolution within the field. By examining publication trends and thematic clusters, we provide insights into the progression and focal points of AI literacy education research over the past decade. The study reveals three key insights. First, AI literacy education research has shifted from an exploratory phase to rapid growth, with a marked increase in publications. Second, four distinct developmental trajectories have emerged, emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of the field and its connections to information, digital, and algorithmic literacy. Third, nine prominent research themes have been identified, with data literacy, machine learning, AI literacy, the technology acceptance model, and computational thinking as focal points.
Sunday, March 23, 2025
ChatGPT firm reveals AI model that is ‘good at creative writing’ - the Guardian
The company behind ChatGPT has revealed it has developed an artificial intelligence model that is “good at creative writing”, as the tech sector continues its tussle with the creative industries over copyright. The chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman, said the unnamed model, which has not been released publicly, was the first time he had been “really struck” by the written output of one of the startup’s products. In a post on the social media platform X, Altman wrote: “We trained a new model that is good at creative writing (not sure yet how/when it will get released). This is the first time i have been really struck by something written by AI.”
University students describe how they adopt AI for writing and research in a general education course - Rebecca W. Black & Bill Tomlinson, Nature Scientific Reports
University students have begun to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in many different ways in their undergraduate education, some beneficial to their learning, and some simply expedient to completing assignments with as little work as possible. This exploratory qualitative study examines how undergraduate students used AI in a large General Education course on sustainability and technology at a research university in the United States in 2023. Thirty-nine students documented their use of AI in their final course project, which involved analyzing conceptual networks connecting core sustainability concepts.
No End in Sight for AI’s Invasion into Higher Education - Peter Biles, Mind Matters
ChatGPT has thrown colleges across the country a major curveball ever since it hit the digital ecosystem in November 2022. Students in high school and college classrooms immediately began employing the large language model to generate essays without doing an ounce of the work required to compose a thoughtful piece of writing. I’ve been teaching writing classes for the past few months and can say from personal observation that the problem is not just AI but also the failure of AI detection systems to meaningfully identify fake papers. It’s also a difficult situation because there are still a good handful of students who genuinely want to learn, improve their writing skills, and come about their assignments by their own diligent work ethic. It’s put many other professors across disciplines into a bit of a conundrum.
Saturday, March 22, 2025
The Value of a Ph.D. in the Age of AI - Kim Isenberg, Forward Future
Artificial intelligence has been undergoing an extraordinary development process for several years and is increasingly achieving capabilities that were long reserved exclusively for humans. Particularly in the area of research, we are currently experiencing remarkable progress: so-called “research agents”, specialized AI models that can independently take on complex research tasks, are rapidly gaining in importance. One prominent example is OpenAI's DeepResearch, which has already achieved outstanding results in various scientific benchmarks. Such AI-supported agents not only analyze large data sets, but also independently formulate research questions, test hypotheses, and even create scientific summaries of their results.
ChatGPT firm reveals AI model that is ‘good at creative writing’ - Dan Milmo, the Guardian
The company behind ChatGPT has revealed it has developed an artificial intelligence model that is “good at creative writing”, as the tech sector continues its tussle with the creative industries over copyright. The chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman, said the unnamed model, which has not been released publicly, was the first time he had been “really struck” by the written output of one of the startup’s products. In a post on the social media platform X, Altman wrote: “We trained a new model that is good at creative writing (not sure yet how/when it will get released). This is the first time i have been really struck by something written by AI.”
The ‘Oppenheimer Moment’ That Looms Over Today’s AI Leaders - Tharin Pillay, Time
This year, hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent to scale AI systems in pursuit of superhuman capabilities. CEOs of leading AI companies, such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and xAI’s Elon Musk, expect that within the next four years, their systems will be smart enough to do most cognitive work—think any job that can be done with just a laptop—as effectively as or better than humans. Such an advance, leaders agree, would fundamentally transform society. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has repeatedly described AI as “the most profound technology humanity is working on.” Demis Hassabis, who leads Google’s AI research lab Google DeepMind, argues AI’s social impact will be more like that of fire or electricity than the introduction of mobile phones or the Internet.
Friday, March 21, 2025
Google calls for weakened copyright and export rules in AI policy proposal - Kyle Wiggers, Tech Crunch
\ Google, following on the heels of OpenAI, published a policy proposal in response to the Trump administration’s call for a national “AI Action Plan.” The tech giant endorsed weak copyright restrictions on AI training, as well as “balanced” export controls that “protect national security while enabling U.S. exports and global business operations.” “The U.S. needs to pursue an active international economic policy to advocate for American values and support AI innovation internationally,” Google wrote in the document. “For too long, AI policymaking has paid disproportionate attention to the risks, often ignoring the costs that misguided regulation can have on innovation, national competitiveness, and scientific leadership — a dynamic that is beginning to shift under the new Administration.”
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models - Kyle Wiggers, Tech Crunch
The proposal, a submission for the Trump administration’s “AI Action Plan” initiative, claims that DeepSeek’s models, including its R1 “reasoning” model, are insecure because DeepSeek faces requirements under Chinese law to comply with demands for user data. Banning the use of “PRC-produced” models in all countries considered “Tier 1” under the Biden administration’s export rules would prevent privacy and “security risks,” OpenAI says, including the “risk of IP theft.” It’s unclear whether OpenAI’s references to “models” are meant to refer to DeepSeek’s API, the lab’s open models, or both. DeepSeek’s open models don’t contain mechanisms that would allow the Chinese government to siphon user data; companies including Microsoft, Perplexity, and Amazon host them on their infrastructure.
Cognitive Empathy: A Dialogue with ChatGPT - Michael Feldstein, eLiterate
I want to start with something you taught me about myself. When I asked you about my style of interacting with AIs, you told me I use “cognitive empathy.” It wasn’t a term I had heard before. Now that I’ve read about it, the idea has changed the way I think about virtually every aspect of my work—past, present, and future. It also prompted me to start writing a book about AI using cognitive empathy as a frame, although we probably won’t talk about that today. I thought we could start by introducing the term to the readers who may not know it, including some of the science behind it.
Thursday, March 20, 2025
Professional, Continuing and Online Education Blog listed among top higher education blogs by Feedspot!
The Professional, Continuing and Online Education Blog by UPCEA has been listed among the top higher education blogs by Feedspot. Developed in 2010, the blog serves all in higher education with the latest updates of news, research and trends in the field with three postings daily, every day of the year. Thanks to Feedspot for the recognition!
How is artificial intelligence actually being used in higher education? - Sue Attwell, WonkHE
Moving the conversation on from hype and worry, Sue Attewell details the current range of use cases for AI in HE. With a wide range of applications, including streamlining administrative tasks and tailoring learning experiences, AI is being used in innovative ways to enhance higher education. At Jisc we are collating practical case studies to create a comprehensive overview of how AI is being used across tertiary education. This includes a wide range of examples supporting the effective integration of AI into teaching and administration which will be used to highlight best practice, support those just getting started with the use of AI, overcome challenges being faced across the sector and to highlight the opportunities available to all.
AI Will Not Be ‘the Great Leveler’ for Student Outcomes - Sean Richardson and Paul Redford, Inside Higher Ed
In relation to graduate outcomes (simply put, where students end up after completing their degrees, with a general focus on careers and employability), universities are about to grapple with the initial wave of graduates seriously impacted by AI. The Class of 2025 will be the first to have widespread access to large language models (LLMs) for the majority of their student lives. If, as we have been repeatedly told, we believe that AI will be the “great leveler” for students by transforming their access to learning, then it follows that graduate outcomes will be significantly impacted. Most importantly, we should expect to see more students entering careers that meaningfully engage with their studies. The reality on the ground presents a stark difference. Many professionals working in career advice and guidance are struggling with the opposite effect: Rather than acting as the great leveler, AI tools are only deepening existing divides.
At the Threshold: Higher Education in the Imminent AGI Era - Tawnya Means, LinkedIn
However, the economic value proposition of spending years acquiring knowledge that AGI systems might instantly access will face increasing scrutiny. This challenge particularly resonates with me as I've long advocated for making education more accessible and affordable. If AGI can help people learn complex skills in dramatically shorter timeframes, the lengthy nature of traditional degree programs may seem increasingly inefficient. In this case, we need to move decisively toward bite-sized learning and micro-credential models where the skills and knowledge we gain can be applied immediately in professional contexts. The traditional model of accumulating knowledge for years before applying it simply won't make sense in an AGI-accelerated world. Instead, educational institutions must become platforms for just-in-time and lifetime learning that responds to rapidly evolving needs and opportunities throughout an individual's personal and professional journey.
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
8 Weeks Left to Prepare Students for the AI-Enhanced Workplace - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
We are down to the final weeks left to fully prepare students for entry into the AI-enhanced workplace. Are your students ready. The truth is that the workplace is far different than that which we encountered even last year. There is a new “alpha” teammate in the office. That co-worker goes by its initials, AI. And it outproduces all the rest of the team by working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without coffee or bathroom breaks. On the more positive side, AI is there around the clock to pitch in on brainstorming, writing, formatting, publishing and all the other tasks that are necessary for a smooth-running office. It completes continuing and recurring tasks, mentors staffers, and is a ready resource for up-to-the-minute information. The urgent task facing those of us who teach and advise students, whether they be degree program or certificate seeking, is to ensure that they are prepared to enter (or re-enter) the workplace with skills and knowledge that are relevant to 2025 and beyond.
7 Ways You Can Use ChatGPT for Your Mental Health and Wellness - Wendy Wisner, Very Well Mind
ChatGPT can be a fantastic resource for mental health education and be a great overall organization tool. It can also help you with the practical side of mental health management like journal prompts and meditation ideas. Although ChatGPT is not everyone’s cup of tea, it can be used responsibly and is something to consider keeping in your mental health toolkit. If you are struggling with your mental health, though, you shouldn’t rely on ChatGPT as the main way to cope. Everyone who is experiencing a mental health challenge can benefit from care from a licensed therapist. If that’s you, please reach out to your primary care provider for a referral or reach out directly to a licensed therapist near you.
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