Mikell Taylor, director of robotics strategy at General Motors, discusses next-generation robots and dispels some common myths. Advances in AI, sensing, and manipulation are pushing robotics beyond isolated automation toward something fundamentally different. As manufacturers face reshoring pressures, fragile supply chains, and rising demands for flexibility, the question is no longer what robots can do alone, but how effectively people and machines can work together to create lasting value. The next generation of robots may look quite different from the systems showcased in today’s lab demos and videos—but the real shift will be less about appearance than about collaboration.
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Did anybody do the reading? Colleges grapple with a generational shift in learning — plus AI - Associated Press
Johnson’s concerns about waning participation and declining reading are shared by professors and teachers in liberal arts programs, including in Pittsburgh. Teachers at four universities interviewed for this story had a variety of theories about the cause, including:
1. Inequitable educational opportunity that leaves some college students unable to comprehend difficult material
2. Federal policies that encourage teaching to the test rather than critical thinking
3. Increasing student use of artificial intelligence (AI) to draft papers and write summaries, which some instructors worry will only worsen the trend.
Robot dogs are protecting data centers. Operators are seeing payoffs. - Lloyd Lee, Business Insider
AI is driving a historic buildout of massive data centers spanning dozens of acres. Boston Dynamics and Ghost Robotics see an opportunity to provide mobile security with robot dogs. Boston Dynamics said customers can see a payoff within 2 years. It's not just humans. The robots are Robot dogs have already been deployed by first responders, the military, and in other industrial sectors such as oil and mining. But the rapid pace of data center buildouts is creating another niche for the mechanical quadrupeds. for dogs, too and they could enter the red-hot space of securing AI data centers.
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
16-Week Online Certificate Program in Agentic AI for Students - Hans India
Bengaluru: Great Learning has announced the launch of a new Certificate Program in Agentic AI in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering. The 16-week online program is designed to equip professionals with the skills required to build autonomous, goal-driven AI systems capable of perceiving, reasoning, and acting independently in dynamic environments. Targeted at STEM professionals, data scientists, AI practitioners, product managers, and technical leaders, the program is delivered by Johns Hopkins faculty alongside industry experts. It focuses on preparing learners to design and deploy next-generation AI agents that can handle complex, real-world challenges.
Why universities should anchor state quantum computing initiatives - Nate Gemelke, University Business
The universities that helped shape the AI revolution did not wait for the technology to mature. They built programs, recruited faculty, and secured funding while the field was still taking shape. Quantum computing is entering a similar inflection point. While the underlying physics is unfamiliar to many, the institutional question is one universities have faced before: how to position themselves, and their regions, during the early stages of a major technological transition. For much of the past decade, quantum computing has been discussed primarily as a long-term research prospect. That framing is now changing. Early systems are operating today, federal agencies are funding large-scale programs, and private companies are beginning to integrate quantum resources into broader high-performance computing environments.
Microcredentials get first-ever endorsement from accreditor - Alcino Donadel, University Business
The Higher Learning Commission has endorsed four organizations that offer short-term credentials to colleges and universities, marking the first time the accreditor has formally verified the quality of a third-party provider focused on certificates, digital badges and microcredentials, according to a press release. There are now over a million microcredential offerings on the market, offering to quickly teach students skills demanded by today’s workforce. Often dubbed “micropathways,” these credentials also serve to complement traditional degrees by signaling specific job-ready competencies to employers.
Women in tech and AI in Europe: Can the region close its gender gap? - Anna Lieser, et al; McKinsey
he tech industry around the world is in transition, with AI reshaping both organizations and the very nature of tech work. For Europe, the implications extend beyond productivity and innovation and touch economic growth, competitiveness, and inclusion. McKinsey analysis estimates that sovereign AI could add more than €480 billion in annual value to Europe’s economy by 2030. Yet the region continues to trail the United States, which is defining the pace and scale of global AI innovation.1
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
When Harvey Met Elle: How AI Tutors Transformed Learning in My Law Class - Wayland Chau, Faculty Focus
This past fall, I taught a business law course to all second year students in the Bachelor of Commerce program at Dalhousie University. I had 343 students across three sections of 109 to 120 students in each. The course covers foundational areas of Canadian business law and requires students to apply that law with a structured legal analysis. Even with active learning approaches in class and clear instructional structures, it was apparent that students needed individualized, on-demand support that traditional office hours and T.A. tutorials could not fully satisfy. To address this, I created and deployed two custom AI tutors, Harvey and Elle, built as custom GPTs in the ChatGPT platform. The aim was to offer scalable, digital learning companions that aligned directly with course learning outcomes and pedagogical needs. What emerged was an effective model for AI-supported instruction that helped students better understand legal concepts, improve their analytical skills, and engage more confidently with course material.
Online learning gains momentum as students reconsider studying abroad - JB, The St.Kitts/Nevis Observer
A regional educator is of the opinion that online learning is becoming an increasingly attractive option for Caribbean students, as uncertainty surrounding overseas study — particularly in the United States — leads more people to pursue higher education from home. According Wendy Williams, the Deputy Dean of Academic Affairs at Academix School of Learning, an educational institution here, many students are now reconsidering traditional study-abroad routes due to concerns about student visa approvals and the risk of investing time and money without certainty of being able to travel. “We have always had our eyes on the United States as a pathway to higher education,” Williams said. “But the reality now is that students are worried about whether their visas will be approved and whether they will be able to travel after investing so much in the process.”
See which jobs are most threatened by AI, and who may be able to adapt - Kevin Schaul and Shira Ovide, Washington Post
No one has a perfect road map to the future, but researchers at GovAI, which studies technology policy, and the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, used a novel approach to estimate which workers may be most and least able to adapt to AI. They concluded that many people most at risk if AI transforms work are also the best placed to find new jobs. You can use the search box and interactive chart above to explore which occupations may have bright prospects and which may not. But history shows that economists and researchers have been terrible at predicting the effects of new technologies on work and workers, so take forecasts like this one seriously but not literally. Even researchers cranking out studies of AI in workplaces caution that they’re making useful but fallible best guesses. “All the important questions about AI’s effects on the labor market are still unanswered,” Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, recently concluded. Economists at Anthropic, the AI start-up behind the Claude chatbot, stressed the need for “humility” in their analysis of AI seeping into occupations. (Humility is uncommon in Silicon Valley.)
Monday, March 23, 2026
Virginia Tech Libraries embrace AI - Lindsey Kudriavetz, Collegiate Times
Virginia Tech Libraries are working to be an artificial intelligence global model for higher education despite research and ethical concerns. “The old tag line for Virginia Tech is to invent the future,” said Tyler Walters, dean of University Libraries. “I think that attitude is still very imbued in the university … so we are looking at how we take this technology and incorporate it.” Virginia Tech Libraries’ digital archives have been implementing AI for approximately five years, according to Walters. The primary use of AI in the physical library is as a consolidation and organization tool. Generative AI is also being used as a tool for summarization of articles and papers. “(AI) saves us months and months of time just sitting there and manually reading and typing,” Walters said.
Why learning AI skills is no longer optional for job seekers | Opinion - Kimberly K. Estep, the Leaf
Proficiency in AI is no longer just an optional skill for job seekers. My organization recently surveyed over 3,000 employers around the country and found that more than half are testing new applicants for AI skills, and 25% are prioritizing candidates with some measure of AI fluency. And as time goes on, this seems to be only the beginning of the trend. AI has made a significant impact on the business world and has cooled the job market for many looking to find careers. It is a time of uncertainty.
OpenAI rolls out new ChatGPT workspace analytics for Enterprise and Edu users - ETIH
OpenAI has introduced an upgraded Workspace Analytics experience for ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Edu, giving administrators and organizational leaders new tools to track adoption, engagement, and usage trends across their AI deployments. The company announced the update on LinkedIn, saying the new analytics dashboard is designed to help organizations understand how ChatGPT usage is developing across teams and identify where additional training or enablement may be needed. The rollout reflects growing demand from schools, universities, and enterprises for clearer data on how generative AI tools are being used inside organizations.
Sunday, March 22, 2026
AI has exposed age-old problems with university coursework - Nafisa Baba-Ahmed, the Guardian
The frustration many academics are expressing about artificial intelligence and critical thinking is understandable (‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI, 10 March). But from my experience working with students on academic writing, blaming AI risks masking a problem that universities have lived with for years. In my work with students, I have long seen the ways in which thinking can be outsourced when assessment allows it: essay mills, shared past papers, model essays passed between cohorts, or heavy reliance on tutors and friends to structure assignments. Artificial intelligence did not invent this behaviour. It has simply industrialised a shortcut that already existed.
Supersonic Tsunami: The Next 6 Months: What's Coming, What It Means, and What You Need to Do - Peter H. Diamandis, Metatrends
If You’re an Entrepreneur: Stop designing for 2024 scarcity. Design for 2030 Abundance. Assume intelligence is free, energy is unlimited, robotic labor costs pennies. What becomes possible that’s impossible today? Your competitive advantage isn’t better execution, it’s imagination about tomorrow’s possibilities. If You’re an Investor: Own the infrastructure. AI chips, fusion energy, launch vehicles, robotics platforms. When the industry deploys a trillion dollars in AI infrastructure, that’s where generational wealth gets made. Jensen Huang just put $40 billion into Anthropic and OpenAI – follow the smart money. Position yourself before the inflection point becomes obvious to everyone. If You’re a CEO: Your industry is about to be stress-tested. Ask: What would our business look like if compute was free, energy unlimited, robotic labor scalable? If You’re a Student: Don’t compete with AI – collaborate with it.
Daniel Priestley: AI Will Make Plumbers Earn More Than Lawyers! (2029 PREDICTION) - The Diary Of A CEO and Daniel Priestley
In this conversation, Daniel Priestley explores the transformative impact of AI on the global economy, predicting a major financial crisis by 2029 due to the unsustainable costs of maintaining data center infrastructure. He argues that while AI will commoditize intelligence and traditional professional roles like law, it will simultaneously elevate blue-collar trades and "irreplaceably human" skills. The "Jevons Paradox" suggests that as AI makes business creation cheaper and faster, we will see an explosion of niche, community-driven "lifestyle businesses" that prioritize personal connection and human experience over massive scale. Priestley emphasizes that the most defensible assets in an AI-driven world are personal branding, entrepreneurial thinking, and lived experience—elements that cannot be replicated by algorithms. He advises individuals to focus on "founder-opportunity fit," leveraging AI tools to prototype ideas quickly while staying anchored in real-world human relationships. The discussion also touches on broader societal shifts, including the risks of government over-involvement in the economy and the vital importance of family and meaningful struggle as the true sources of long-term fulfillment. [Gemini 3 provided assistance with the summary]
Saturday, March 21, 2026
History tells us a golden age can come after the AI apocalypse- Jo-An Occhipinti, Ante Prodan and Roy Green, Financial Review
Societies must channel technological potential toward broad-based growth rather than allowing the gains to concentrate among the winners of the speculative phase. The market grasped this before the accountants did. Since early this year, the S&P 500 Software and Services Index has shed nearly $1 trillion. Salesforce is down 30 per cent year-to-date. Adobe’s forward price-earnings ratio has compressed from 30 to 12. Software price-to-sales ratios fell from nine to six within weeks, levels not seen since the mid-2010s. Australian superannuation funds, with hundreds of billions invested in international equities heavily weighted to US technology, are exposed to every dollar of this repricing. But software is only where the destruction is most visible. It is not where it ends. AI is beginning to erode the value of a broader category of accumulated capital: the knowledge, processes, organisational structures and professional expertise that the advanced economies spent half a century building.
AI could leave many college grads unemployed, says ServiceNow CEO - EdScoop
Bill McDermott, the chief executive of ServiceNow, an American cloud computing firm, told reporters recently that the advancement of artificial intelligence could push the unemployment level of recent college graduates into the almost 40%. McDermott told CNBC that “so much of the work is going to be done by agents,” highlighting the challenge that college graduates will likely face. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York put the unemployment rate of recent college graduates, at the end of last year, at 5.7%, while underemployment for the same group reached 42.5%. Layoffs at large companies, particularly in Big Tech, continue. The fintech firm Block, recently announced it would lay off about 4,000 employees, roughly half of its workforce.
AI literacy mediates AI assisted diagnosis participation and critical thinking among medical students under supervision - Yang Xin, Deng Yan, Luo Shuren, Luo Minyang & Lu Liuheng, Nature, Digital Medicine
This longitudinal study followed 372 medical students across 12 months of supervised rotations using an AI-assisted diagnosis system. AI-assisted diagnosis participation, AI literacy and medical critical thinking were assessed at baseline, 6 months and 12 months. Cross-lagged panel models examined prospective associations, statistical mediation by AI literacy and moderation by prior technological experience and learning goal orientation. Higher participation was associated with increases in AI literacy and critical thinking, and AI literacy statistically mediated the participation-to-critical thinking association. Indirect effects were stronger among students with greater technological experience and mastery-oriented goals and weaker among performance-oriented peers. Findings indicate that, within supervised clinical training, engagement with AI systems is associated with critical thinking development partly through enhanced AI literacy, supporting AI tools as educational resources under faculty guidance.
Friday, March 20, 2026
Why multilingual community college students struggle—and what schools can do - Michelle Centamore, University Business
A new report from the Community College Research Center, Supporting Multilingual Learners in Community Colleges: Lessons from City Colleges of Chicago, examines policies and practices across the seven-campus City Colleges of Chicago system. The three-year mixed-methods study included interviews, surveys and analysis of administrative data. It defines multilingual learners as students developing English proficiency while pursuing education or training. “Community colleges serve a diverse student population in terms of age, racial and ethnic background, and education level,” the report notes, but “relatively little is known about those who are in the process of developing English language proficiency and what motivates them to enroll.” Multilingual learners enroll in community colleges for many reasons, including improving communication skills, preparing for careers and earning college degrees.
Online education isn’t a technology problem – it’s a systems challenge - the PIE
Over the past decade, universities have quietly crossed an important threshold. Online degrees are no longer experimental, peripheral, or niche. They are becoming part of the core program offering at leading institutions. Across the UK alone, thousands of postgraduate programs are now delivered online, and hundreds of thousands of undergraduate learners study through distance or digital modes. What was once treated as an alternative pathway to obtaining a degree is increasingly a mainstream form of provision. But the most important question for universities is no longer whether they should move to online provision. The real question is how that migration actually happens inside institutions.
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