Professional, Continuing, and Online Education Update by UPCEA
Daily updates of news, research and trends by UPCEA
Click on the URL at the end of posting to visit the relevant article or website mentioned in the post.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
How the humanities play a crucial role in current conversations - Megan Neely, ASU
Memorandum on Advancing the United States’ Leadership in Artificial Intelligence; Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Fulfill National Security Objectives; and Fostering the Safety, Security, and Trustworthiness of Artificial Intelligence - the White House
This memorandum fulfills the directive set forth in subsection 4.8 of Executive Order 14110 of October 30, 2023 (Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence). This memorandum provides further direction on appropriately harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) models and AI-enabled technologies in the United States Government, especially in the context of national security systems (NSS), while protecting human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and safety in AI-enabled national security activities. A classified annex to this memorandum addresses additional sensitive national security issues, including countering adversary use of AI that poses risks to United States national security.
Anthropic’s agentic Computer Use is giving people ‘superpowers’ - Taryn Plumb, Venture Beat
Still in beta, Computer Use allows Claude to work autonomously and use a computer essentially as a human does. The groundbreaking capability has broad implications for the future of work, as it can work essentially on its own, perform repetitive tasks and quickly gather up data from numerous disparate sources. “Anthropic just released the most amazing AI technology I’ve ever used. I’m not kidding,” startup founder Alex Finn posted to X (formerly Twitter). “It’s legit changing day to day.”AI agents are here and you can now build your own personal army of AI's that will do work for you. Here is your demo and complete beginner's guide:
Friday, November 1, 2024
SynthID: Identifying AI-generated content with SynthID - Google Deep Mind
1 in 6 Companies Are Hesitant To Hire Recent College Graduates - Intelligent
The art of 21st-century leadership: From succession planning to building a leadership factory - Bob Sternfels, et al; McKinsey
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Another Advance for the 3-Year Degree - Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
Free online anatomy textbook wins WOW award - University of Hawaii News
Can Anthropic’s Claude control your PC? - Martin Crowley, AI Tool Report
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Ellucian's AI Survey of Higher Education Professionals Reveals Surge in AI Adoption Despite Concerns Around Privacy and Bias - Ellucian
Geoffrey Hinton Reveals the SCARY Future of Employment - Technomics, YouTube
Claude 3.5's New AI Agents Are GAME CHANGING (Claude 3.5 Agents + New Models) - Andrew Black, The AIGrid YouTube
- Improved performance: Claude 3.5 Sonet shows substantial improvements in various benchmarks, particularly in coding where it surpasses all other models, including specialized ones. It also shows marked improvement in graduate reasoning, general QA, and high school math competitions.
- Agentic capabilities: The new models, particularly Claude 3.5 Hau, demonstrate strong performance in agentic coding and tool use, setting a new standard for AI models and indicating the future direction of AI development.
- Computer use: A groundbreaking feature in public beta allows Claude to interact with computers like humans, using a cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text. This opens up possibilities for automating tasks, building and testing software, and conducting open-ended research. (summary assisted by GenAI)
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Are colleges really facing an enrollment cliff? - Dick Startz, Brookings
Tracking college closures - Marina Villeneuve and Olivia Sanchez, Hechinger Report
Unlocking autonomous agent capabilities with Microsoft Copilot Studio - Charles Lamanna, Microsoft
Monday, October 28, 2024
Black women on the academic tightrope: four scholars weigh in - Malika Jeffries-EL, Monica R. McLemore, Ruby Zelzer & Tiara Moore, Nature
Career Prep Tip: Teaching Entrepreneurship Students to Self-Teach With AI - Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed
Keeping artificial intelligence real - Navrina Singh, McKinsey Digital
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence in New Jersey: The time is now - written by ChatGPT, edited by Andrew Zwicker, NJ.com
By investing in AI education for all students, from K-12 through higher education, the state will cultivate a workforce prepared to engage with and build on these new technologies. By fostering AI research and development in our four-year universities, New Jersey will create a talent pipeline with the skills and creativity to invent the next generation of problem-solving AI tools and fill high-demand roles across the industry spectrum. Similarly, we must invest in our community colleges, ensuring equitable access to the AI education and training that will be needed to fill jobs that don’t require an advanced degree. Community colleges will also be vital to quickly and nimbly providing opportunities for all workers to obtain new AI skills as they emerge, and to retrain workers whose jobs do disappear.
St. Louis University To Freeze 130 Positions And Lay Off 23 Staff - Michael T. Nietzel, Forbes
Faced with mounting budget challenges, St. Louis University announced on Friday that it will terminate 23 staff positions and freeze another 130 current vacancies.The news came in a letter from St. Louis University President Fred Pestello that was reported by the student newspaper, the University News. Of the 130 unfilled lines that will be frozen, 30 involve teaching positions across several departments, according to the paper.The news was not unexpected. University officials have warned the campus throughout the year that its expenses were outpacing revenues and that it would be necessary to reduce spending to get the budget back into alignment. To do so, they indicated they would increase distributions from the university’s $1.8 billion endowment and reduce current year expenses by about 4%.