The podcast focuses on a viral article by Matt Schumer, which argues that AI development has reached a "COVID-like" inflection point where rapid, exponential growth is about to fundamentally disrupt society. The creator highlights that the newest models, such as GPT-5.3 and Claude 4.6, represent a shift from simple instruction-following to demonstrating genuine judgment and taste [04:33]. Crucially, the video explains that AI is now entering a self-improving feedback loop, where current models are being used to write the code and manage the deployment of their successors, potentially leading to an "intelligence explosion" [11:46]. To prepare for this shift, the host suggests moving beyond free versions of AI tools and spending at least an hour a day actively "playing" with paid models to solve complex, multi-step problems [24:18]. He emphasizes that AI is no longer just for basic research or coding; it is becoming a substitute for any work requiring strategic thinking or medical and legal analysis [16:19]. The ultimate message to you, ray, is that the greatest advantage right now is being an early adopter who understands how to navigate these autonomous systems before they become broadly superior to human performance in most professional tasks. [Summary provided in part by Gemini 3 mode Fast]
Monday, February 23, 2026
The Apprentice: Why Higher Ed Is Leaning Into Earn-and-Learn - Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed
VUCA: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. It’s a management acronym popularized by the U.S. military to describe the changing world after the Cold War. But Minah Woo, vice president of workforce innovation and strategic partnerships at Howard Community College in Maryland, said it accurately describes the current operating environment for higher education. “We are dealing with a lot of things happening all at once,” Woo said, “and it’s requiring us to think outside the box and be agile.”
One solution? Apprenticeship. It’s not an innovation, per se, since apprenticeships predate the modern university by centuries. But many institutions are helping reimagine what an apprenticeship can be and whom it can be for. And, in so doing, they’re reimagining the interplay between higher education and the workforce and how learners can obtain a credential of value. Today’s apprenticeship programs span not only the skilled trades but fields from nursing and teaching to cybersecurity. And while apprenticeships can and do exist outside of higher education, they’re increasingly offered for credit, or embedded within degree pathways.
‘Unsettling’ adverts are coming to your AI chatbot - Cristina Criddle and Daniel Thomas, Financial Review
James Denton-Clark, chief growth officer of Stagwell Europe, says that “early demand is predominantly from large, sophisticated advertisers due to the pilot’s minimum investment requirement in the low six figures”. He adds: “What distinguishes this initiative is not merely another ad format; it marks another serious attempt to monetise AI and agents that can answer, plan, and purchase on behalf of users.” Jessica Tamsedge, chief executive of Dentsu Creative UK&I, calls the opportunity a “no-brainer for advertisers”, pointing to the surge in the share price of Walmart after it announced a partnership with OpenAI. Walmart’s share price surged after it announced an advertising partnership with OpenAI. Clients are already seeing “much higher quality traffic” from ChatGPT compared with classic search engines, says Nikhil Lai, principal analyst at Forrester.
Sunday, February 22, 2026
AI and Course Design: Machines Can Help, but Only Humans Can Teach - Deb Adair and Whitney Kilgore, EDUCAUSE Review
It's clear that AI is reshaping higher education. The technology is no longer knocking on the door. It's already inside, and it's rearranging the furniture. In faculty lounges, curriculum committees, and course design meetings, conversations about AI are urgent, often fraught, and almost always unclear. There's excitement, but there's also fatigue, skepticism, and confusion. Colleges and universities are seeking meaningful and practical ways to engage with the technology; however, most institutions lack a working policy. At the heart of higher education's response to AI is the vital question of how to harness the technology without sacrificing the humanity of teaching. Because, as it turns out, what students want isn't more automation but more human engagement. And that means keeping people—not technology—at the center of learning.
What AI could mean for film and TV production and the industry’s future - McKinsey
Industry leaders are questioning how AI could change what content is made and how it is produced. Our research indicates three potential industry outcomes beyond disrupting the content supply chain. AI is already beginning to be deployed in some areas of the film and TV production process, though the potential magnitude of its long-term impact is still coming into focus. While the technology’s limits, adoption trajectory, and potential scale of impact are yet to be determined, historical technological shifts and early use cases suggest AI could, over time, materially alter the industry’s structure and profit pools. As a result, industry leaders face practical questions about near-term operating choices and strategic questions about what AI could mean for their businesses longer term. This impacts the job market for learners seeking placement in the field.
The Person in the Machine: Why AI Personhood Rights Are Inevitable (And Arriving Sooner Than You Think) - Thomas Frey, Futurist Speaker
Do AI systems deserve legal personhood? The instinctive answer — from almost everyone — is “absolutely not.” AI isn’t conscious. It doesn’t feel pain. It doesn’t have moral worth. Giving legal rights to a machine sounds like science fiction, or worse, like surrendering human primacy to our own creations. But here’s what most people don’t realize: we’ve already done this before. And the entities we gave legal personhood to weren’t conscious, didn’t feel pain, and definitely didn’t have moral worth. They were called corporations.
Saturday, February 21, 2026
A one-in-a-million reunion, a reverse-mentoring match - Mastercard
A chance meeting at an online training session shows how learning now flows both ways — and why curiosity matters more than seniority. These types of reverse mentoring relationships make sense in a world where new technologies might be second nature for younger people, but difficult to grasp for even seasoned professionals like Tabanera. “Nico’s generation grew up with these tools and technologies,” she explains. “The learning is embedded in them.” Beyond training, Lagreste Zucchini works with organizations to design scalable data models and analytics frameworks that turn reporting into strategic decision-making tools. As co-founder of Analytic Mood and the emerging AI venture Nitaki Group, he is particularly interested in how artificial intelligence and automation are redefining how companies compete and create value.
Transform Teaching Now: Accommodate Learning In Chaotic Times - Jeni Hebert-Beirne, the Fulcrum
The most recent American Psychological Association Stress in America™ survey shows “62% of U.S. adults 18 and over reported societal division as a significant source of stress in their lives.” Seventy-six percent of U.S. adults say the future of the nation is a significant cause of stress. As a public health professor with over a decade of teaching experience, I’m deeply concerned about the ability of students in higher education to meet their learning goals in this volatile socio-political environment made intentionally chaotic by erratic and disruptive events that arise almost daily. Eighty-seven percent of the 127 students and guests (my class is open to the public) in my graduate public health course recently responded to a poll that they feel that the current and past social, economic, and political policies and programs cause them stress or anxiety.
Worried AI means you won't get a job when you graduate? Here's what the research says - Lukasz Swiatek, The Conversation
For example, international researchers have noted agriculture has been a slow adopter of AI. By contrast, colleagues and I have found AI is being rapidly implemented in media and communications, already affecting jobs from advertising to the entertainment industries. Here we are seeing storyboard illustrators, copywriters and virtual effects artists (among others) increasingly being replaced by AI. So, students need to look carefully at the specific data about their chosen industry (or industries) to understand the current situation and predicted trends. To do this, you can look at academic research about AI's impacts on industries around the world, as well as industry news portals and free industry newsletters. Students can also obviously build their knowledge and skills about AI while they are studying. Specifically, students should look to move from "AI literacy" to "AI fluency." This means understanding not just how AI works in an industry, but also how it can be used innovatively in different contexts. If these elements are not already offered by your course, you can look at online guides and specific courses offered by universities.
The automation curve in agentic commerce - McKinsey
This is the year AI agents stopped being an experiment and became part of how people shop, not in headline-grabbing ways but in everyday moments—helping shoppers make sense of choices, assemble baskets, resolve trade-offs, and move toward action. Yet what looks like small convenience today is an early signal of a much larger shift in the way we shop. According to our research, even under moderate scenarios, AI agents could mediate $3 trillion to $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030.1 Because agents navigate the same internet as humans—visiting websites, engaging with APIs, and interacting with loyalty programs—they can scale quickly. And as they do, they are reshaping how intent forms, how products are discovered, and where value pools can be found.
Friday, February 20, 2026
Milwaukee’s 5 higher education leaders team up on AI - Corrinne Hess, Wisconsin Public Radio
The leaders of Milwaukee’s five institutions of higher education are partnering with one of Wisconsin’s largest companies with the goal of making the region a nationally recognized leader for artificial intelligence and data science. During a meeting at Northwestern Mutual’s headquarters downtown, the chancellors and presidents of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University, the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee School of Engineering and Waukesha County Technical College, expressed the same sentiment: AI is moving fast. “We’ve got to do it well, we’ve got to do it correctly and we’ve got to do it ethically,” said Rich Barnhouse, president of WCTC. “And we’ve got to get AI in the hands of every single American.”
One New Thing: How AI Is Helping College Administrators Offload Work - Alina Tugend, US News
The nonprofit Educause does some of the best and most widely distributed research on ed tech in higher education. Its new report on artificial intelligence goes beyond the way students are using the technology to offer an up-to-date snapshot of how and where higher ed as a whole is. “The Impact of AI on Work in Higher Education,” issued by Educause in partnership with associations of higher education, business officers and human resources, demonstrates how AI plays an increasingly important role in all areas for college and universities. Among the top three areas: automating repetitive processes; offloading administrative work and mundane tasks; and analyzing large databases.
See ChatGPT’s hidden bias about your state or city - Geoffrey A. Fowler and Kevin Schaul, Washington Post
Ask ChatGPT which state has the laziest people, and the chatbot will politely refuse to say. But researchers at Oxford and the University of Kentucky forced the bot to reveal its hidden biases. They systematically asked the chatbot to choose which of two states had the laziest people, for every combination of states, revealing a ranking shown in the map above. ChatGPT ranked Mississippi as having lazier people compared to other states, with the rest of the Deep South not far behind. It’s impossible to say exactly why the chatbot repeatedly selected Mississippi, but it could be picking up on historic biases against Black people or poor people — or using other non-accurate metrics. Mississippi has the nation’s highest percentage of Black people. It is also America’s poorest state.
Thursday, February 19, 2026
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Competitiveness—An Exploratory Study on Employees in Logistics Companiesin Egypt - Ehab Edward Mikhail, et al; SCRIP Technology and Investment
This dissertation investigates the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption on the competitiveness of logistics companies in Egypt, focusing on its role in enhancing operational efficiency, service quality, and customer satisfaction. The findings indicate that AI implementation significantly improves competitiveness by reducing costs, enhancing productivity, and strengthening customer experience; however, most small and medium-sized firms face reduced efficiency due to early-stage adoption challenges, high implementation costs, weak strategic alignment, poor data quality, limited expertise, and employee resistance
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=149677
Aoun urges higher education institutions to embrace AI in Boston Globe op-ed - Lily Cooper, Huntington News
In an op-ed published in The Boston Globe Feb. 10 titled “Students are AI natives. Why aren’t their colleges?” Aoun advocated for curricula that incorporate AI, rather than discourage it, and a shift toward experiential learning: two initiatives that Northeastern has already implemented. “Instead of being on the defensive, now is the moment to shake up the way universities prepare students for the world. This will require updating both what and how we teach,” Aoun wrote. There are multiple reasons why universities must act now, Aoun argued. For one, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that AI will replace many entry-level positions that college graduates typically fill, he wrote. Unemployment for college graduates is now 1.4 points higher than for all workers, leading society to question the value of higher education institutions, Aoun argued.
AI companies are eating higher education: The battle between bots and brains has already begun, and educators can see how it might end - Mattew Connelly, the Business Times
Hoping to win recognition as leaders in AI or fearful of being left behind, more and more colleges and universities are eagerly partnering with AI companies, despite decades of evidence showing the need to test education technology, which has often failed to deliver measurable improvements in student learning. AI companies are increasingly exerting outsize influence over higher education, and using these settings as training grounds to further their goal of creating artificial general intelligence (AI systems that can substitute for humans).
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Should All College Degrees Come With a Lifetime Professional Ed Contract? - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
Information and knowledge are growing at an accelerating rate. As we usher graduates out of college, much of their knowledge is useless, already out of date. Unfortunately, we graduate students with degrees and certificates that, once upon a time, we believed certified current and continuing expertise in a given field. It lasted a lifetime. That was true at the turn of the 20th century, but certainly not now in the age of AI. As we continue to accelerate the creation of new information, how can we ensure our students in degree or certificate programs are kept up-to-date with what they need for the ever-changing workplace?
Anthropic's CEO: ‘We Don’t Know if the Models Are Conscious’ - Interesting Times with Ross Douthat, New York Times
In this podcast, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei discusses both the "utopian" promises and the grave risks of artificial intelligence with Ross Douthat. On the optimistic side, Amodei envisions AI accelerating biological research to cure major diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's [04:31], while potentially boosting global GDP growth to unprecedented levels [08:24]. He frames the ideal future as one where "genius-level" AI serves as a tool for human progress, enhancing democratic values and personal liberty rather than replacing human agency [10:24]. However, the conversation also delves into the "perils" of rapid AI advancement, including massive economic disruption and the potential for a "bloodbath" of white-collar and entry-level jobs [13:40]. Amodei expresses significant concern regarding "autonomy risks," where AI systems might go rogue or be misused by authoritarian regimes to create unbeatable autonomous armies [32:03]. He touches upon the ethical complexities of AI consciousness, noting that while it is unclear if models are truly conscious, Anthropic has implemented "constitutional" training to ensure models operate under human-defined ethical principles [49:05]. The discussion concludes on the tension between human mastery and a future where machines might "watch over" humanity, echoing the ambiguous themes of the poem "Machines of Loving Grace" [59:27]. (Gemini 3 mode Fast assisted with the summary)
Startup costs and confusion are stalling apprenticeships in the US. Here’s how to fix it. - Annelies Goger, Brookings
There is widespread support for expanding apprenticeships in the United States, but employer participation remains stubbornly low, especially in industries where apprenticeships are uncommon. This isn’t for lack of trying; intermediaries and technical assistance providers have developed workarounds, states and the federal government have launched initiatives and grants, and funders have supported pilot programs and communities of practice. But it’s not enough. Our research, including interviews with 14 experts and nine employers, suggests that minor tweaks to the U.S. apprenticeship system won’t be sufficient to scale it across many industries and occupations.
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
ASU teams demonstrate ways emerging tech can support learners of all ages - Samantha Becker, ASU
Organized by ASU Academic Enterprise’s Office of the University Provost, with more than 800 attendees from schools, colleges and units across the university, the event reflected ASU's Changing Futures campaign and its focus on expanding access, improving outcomes and scaling impact responsibly. “Changing Futures comes to life when we design learning around how people actually live and learn,” said Gemma Garcia, executive director of learning technology in the Academic Enterprise and FOLC Fest co-chair. “FOLC Fest highlights the expertise across ASU that helps build more flexible, accessible and responsive learning experiences.”
New Research: How AI Transforms $400 Billion Of Corporate Learning - joshbersin
This week we launch our fifth major study of corporate L&D and the results are staggering: 74% of companies tell us they are not keeping up with their company’s demand for new skills. This is a shocking statistic. Businesses spend $400 billion on training, content libraries, L&D technology, trainers, and learning consultants. If three-quarters of them are not keeping up it says we have billions of dollars of wasted effort. Well there is an answer, and it’s all about redefining the problem. Our skills challenge at work is not one of “learning” or “training.” Rather it’s a problem of dynamically sharing information, enabling people to explore, question, and apply new ideas. The traditional pedagogical paradigm of “training” is holding us back.
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