Category: AI

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 […]

I have to admit to being a bit of a data nerd. Most of my time has been spent looking for Labour Market Data which can inform people in their career choice. There is increasing availability through using technology to scrape job adverts. But the hard bit is making sense of all this data. And this table showing how much people in different countries trust AI illustrates the point. Why is Spain the country in Europe with the most trust for AI? And why is Finland bottom of the table in trusting AI? The table comes from a new publication […]

Next week together with George Bekiaridis I am facilitating a workshop at the Joint Ecology Enhanced Learning (JTEL) summer school in Crete. And a week or so ago I had an email: Dear JTELSS25 participant, We are inviting you to our Pecha Kucha session, which will take place on the first working day of the summer school (Monday 12th, May). The purpose of the session is to get to know each other better.  Pecha Kucha (Japanese: chit-chat) is a simple presentation format where a presenter shows 20 slides for 20 seconds of commentary each. For the needs and time limitations […]

There’s a pretty intense debate going on over the impact of AI on work. Some researchers have pointed to the lack of convincing use cases for AI in many industries and occupations. Others have pointed to the need for transforming workplaces if the introduction of AI is to result in markedly higher levels of productivity, saying this process will be relatively slow. Microsoft say that AI is emerging as a true assistant—an active collaborator that is fundamentally reshaping how enterprises operate. Their recent Work Trends Report introduces the concept of the “Frontier Firm,” a new organizational archetype where hybrid teams […]

Open Praxis is a peer-reviewed open access scholarly journal focusing on research and innovation in open, distance, and flexible education. The aim of Open Praxis is to provide a platform for global collaboration and discussion of issues in the practice of open, online, and distance education. And in an editorial 47 authors have published ‘The Manifesto for Teaching and Learning in a Time of Generative AI: A Critical Collective Stance to Better Navigate the Future’. “Algorithms now shape human interaction, communication, and content creation”, they say, “raising profound questions about human agency and biases and values embedded in their designs. […]