Author: Graham Attwell

I have been moaning lately about the quality of so called research and publications about education, learning and the. use of Generative AI. Well, the hype is showing no signs of dying down but there does seem to be some pretty good research beginning to emerge. And I understand it takes time to do research especially if you are trying to find out about the potential impact of AI on learning. Anyway, one publication, not so much about formal education, but about the use of AI in work and its potential impact of employment, which I liked is a research […]

One feature of the ongoing debates around Generative AI is that almost everything seems to be contested. While the big tech companies are ever bullish about the prospects for their new applications, controversy continues about the wider societal impact of these tools, including on education and employment. Despite the initial concerns of the impact of Generative AI on employment, it seemed that fears were overblown although this may now be changing. Even so replacement of staff by AI may depend not just on sectors and occupations but all on the organisation and size of companies. Of course the motivation of […]

I’ve written a lot about AI and education over the last year. I’ve not written so much about AI and learning and I’m going to try to remedy this in the next year. I’ve been writing for the AI Pioneers project in which Pontydysgu is a partner.

Look at a list of the ten tech companies with the highest market valuation as of mid-November. With the exception of the Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC, all are American; no European company even comes close. In an article entitled Why Does U.S. Technology Rule? in his new (free) newsletter, Krugman Wonks Out, renowned economist Paul Krugman examines the reasons for such American domination. Krugman points out America is a big country, “yet our tech giants all come from a small part of that big nation”. Six of the companies on the list are based in Silicon Valley, he says, and […]

Every day hundreds of posts are written on social media about AI and education. Every day yet more papers are published about AI and education. Webinars, seminars and conferences about AI and education. Yet nearly all of them are about formal education, education in the classroom. But as Stephen Downes says in a commentary on a blog by Alan Levine we need more on how people actually teach and actually learn. “We get a lot in the literature about how it happens in the classroom. But the classroom is a very specialized environment, designed to deal with the need to foster a common set […]

There\s some pretty fearsome discussions going on this week between so called sceptics of Gen AI and supporters (although much of the shouting is over the terms of the debate). Bur it seems pretty incontestable that the big AI technology providers are trying to muscle in on education as a promising market. In a series of posts on LinkedIn, Ben Williamson from Edinburgh University has looked at the different initiatives by the companies who not surprisingly are giving incentives to sign up with their AI variant. Google he said almost literally buying institutions, with prime ministerial endorsement, to advance its […]

Much of the big excitement about Generative AI was driven by the idea that it would boost productivity (and thus profit). Conversely one of the fears was that it would lead to job losses although there was little or no consensus about how severe such job losses might be and indeed some commentators speculated that new jobs created by AI would balance out the losses. Early research and reports into the impact of AI were conflicted, with increasing levels of hype perhaps overwhelming more sober research findings. And even now there is only a limited consensus of the impact of […]

I’m impressed by the work being carried out by the DAIR Institute. DAIR stands for Distributed AI Research Institute. They say “We are an interdisciplinary and globally distributed AI research institute rooted in the belief that AI is not inevitable, its harms are preventable, and when its production and deployment include diverse perspectives and deliberate processes it can be beneficial. Our research reflects our lived experiences and centers our communities.” They believe locally-developed technology better serves its communities than solutions imposed from afar. In a recent blog, Decentralized, Locally-Tailored Technology, Nyalleng Moorosi looks at the difference between the tools that […]

UNESCO have launched an online course in response to a survey of digital content creators, 73 per cent of whom requested training. According to UNESCO the course aims to empower content creators to address disinformation and hate speech and provide them with a solid grounding in global human rights standards on both Freedom of Expression and Information. The content was produced by media and information literacy experts in close collaboration with leading influencers around the world to directly address the reality of situations experienced by digital content creators. The course has just started and runs for 4 weeks; over 9 000 […]