Author: Graham Attwell

So many of the newsletters about AI are based on the intersection of technology and business. So it came as welcome relief to find an edition of AI Supremacy talking about AI, psychology, relationships, adaptation, coping and our self-regulation to live more fulfilling lives as individuals. The edition is based on work by Natalia Cote-Munoz of the Newsletter Artificial Inquiry. Natalia says: “The future of human-AI collaboration is being written right now—not in Silicon Valley conference rooms, but in the daily workflows of neurodivergent people who’ve discovered something remarkable: AI tools designed for general use can remove barriers that traditional […]

Get any group of teachers together and ask them their main concern about AI and the answer will be assessment. Its not really surprising since education systems have built their reputations on the value of assessments, however weak traditional exam systems have been. But of course in vocational education and training in most countries there has been change, with moves towards outcome based curriculum leading to more practical real world assessment exercises. This doesn’t mean vocational teachers don’t have the same concerns over AI and assessment, especially when it comes to assessment of more formal academic learning. In the UK, […]

There is an avalanche of blogs, papers. reports and so on over AI in higher education and in schools. There is not so much about vocational education and training. And as for adult education – it has largely been ignored. I suppose one reason may be that adult education provision varies so much in different countries. And another may be that funding for adult educati9on is generally pretty poor. That is why the latest resource kit “Beyond the Buzz: AI in Adult Education” in the EU EPALE electronic platform and newsletter is so welcome. The faeture asks the central question […]

There is a growing conversation about data rights, suggesting that the debate over digital ownership is just beginning. Apart from several well publicised legal cases in the USA over scraped data, in the UK the government has been forced to launch an urgent review, after facing a fierce campaign by musicians and employees in the creative industries. The big tech AI companies have been claiming that scraping data for training Large Language Models represents fair use, even when being explicitly asked not to do so. Now the Mastodon social network, launched in 2016, allowing users to create their own servers […]

Everything can change very fast when Generative AI is involved. Only a few weeks ago I was writing about how although a number of occupations had been hit hard by Gen AL, in general the jobs outlook was relatively good. If course the present USA economic policy (if it can be called that) does not help in trying to work out what is going on. The latest alarm seems to have been kicked off by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei who said that ordinary people are not ready for the changes AI is about to unleash on the world. In a […]

Introduction Debates over the future of AI in education continue apace. There is increasing advocacy for AI as a public good, and for building on Open Source Software. I originally intended to write just one blog on these ideas but it rapidly grew in length so now I intend to post it as a mini series. This short blog series will guide European teachers and trainers through the key concepts and practical implications of Public AI for education. We’ll explore how open source AI models can provide more transparent and equitable alternatives to commercial systems, examine real-world examples of European […]

Sometimes the sheer volume of posts, newsletters, opinions about AI and education can feel overwhelming. And given the amount of this that seemingly comes from AI, the quality is not always great. But recently there seems to be an encouraging move towards people writing well thought out essays which agree with them or not are raising important issues. One which has made me think is ‘Beyond Augmentation: Toward a Posthumanist Epistemology for AI and Education’, by J. OwenMatson who, his website says, “explores literature, film, art, AI, and educational technology through the lenses of cognition, media theory, and philosophy—tracing how […]

I was in a discussion about common myths about AI. And I wasn’t so sure they were myths. AI is definitely not the all singing, all dancing solution it is being promoted as to solve all the problems around education. But it is true that their are commonly held myths or ideas about AI, which generally apply to all technology. So I had some fun trying to write up some of these in just a paragraph. Misconception #1 Generative AI is AI (only AI)  A common misconception in education is equating artificial intelligence solely with generative AI tools like ChatGPT […]

Is AI a threat to jobs? Repeated opinion polls have shown high levels of concern in many countries. Up to now the evidence has been at best contradictory but that has not stopped growing disquiet as the large technology companies developing ever more sophisticated Large Language Models promote their applications as boosting productivity (Agents are the latest craze). The futurist, Gerd Leonhard points to the new startup, ‘Mechanize.work’ which he says lays it out clearly: *”Today we’re announcing Mechanize, a startup focused on developing virtual work environments, benchmarks, and training data that will enable the full automation of the economy. But, […]

The debate on regulating AI has not gone away. The European Union is moving ahead with the implementation of the the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act). It establishes a common regulatory and legal framework for AI within the European Union and came into force in August 2024, although measures will come into operation gradually over the next nine or so months. The Act regulates the providers of AI systems and entities using AI in a professional context and classifies AI applications by their risk of causing harm. There are four levels – unacceptable, high, limited, minimal – plus an additional […]