Looking Back on My AI Blog One Year In: AI Unfolding as Predicted

On May 30, 2023, I’ve started blogging about AI, and, so far, I think things have been unfolding as predicted.

AGI — May 21, 2023

"There will be many, many more developments in AI over the next 1–20 years before we hit AGI, and these will impact schools (we may soon view ChatGPT4 as “primitive”).

Many disagree on what is included in AGI and will debate exactly when it will arrive; some of that disagreement is over how they define it.

AGI could arrive (probably) any time in the next 3–20 years.”

It will take 3-20 years to prove me right on this one, but this is the timeline almost everyone offers. Yann LeCun, who the anti-AI crowed like to quote to say AI is dumber than a cat and that LLMs won’t get us to AGI, says 10ish years is a good timeline for AI to be at least as smart as us in every domain in which we are smart. Yes, that’s when every second grader graduates from high school.

Since AGI is a concept and not an idea, there won’t be a “an AGI declaration,” but we are continuing to expect AGIish capabilities on this time frame.

It’s impacting schools now.

ChatGPT5, which is likely to be a massive multi-agent framework, , is in training.

Is your school preparing your students for an AGI World?

It’s not just another piece of Edtech — May 25, 2023

“It can do your work and your students’ work.
It can interact with you.
You (or someone) can fall in love with it.
The human side of your teaching will become your most important asset.
We need everyone at the table,.”

These are now well-known capabilities, and everyone is starting to say that our humanity is our most important teaching asset. Isn’t that Good?

AI Literacy — May 30

“AI Literacy: The Immediate Need and What it Includes
An AI Literacy plan for your school should be one of your highest priorities”

This needs to happen, everyone agrees.
Check out my podcast with Vera Cubero if you haven’t already.

Bot Teachers/Tutors — June 11

“The Bot Teachers are already present to a degree, with students already using systems such as ChatGPT for tutoring. Khan Academy already has ChatGPT4 integrated into its publicly available tutoring programs. Baidu in China has integrated an English tutor into its new phone for students (Feng). Giglish offers tutoring in 16 languages (HT Tech).”

There are many of these tutors now, but ChatGPT/Khanmigo is probably the most famous, and Microsoft is now giving it away to teachers.

AI Writing Detectors — June 17

“AI Writing Detectors Are Not Reliable and Often Generate Discriminatory False Positives.”

Almost every understands this now.

AI Use in the Classroom is Uncontrollable —- June 25

“Starting in the fall of 2023, any lid on that (AI in writing) use is about to get blown off: awareness of these tools has massively grown; they are now an embedded part of Office and Google docs; they can write more and more in student voice; entire companies exist that provide AIs to write for the students and guarantee their work can’t be detected by plagiarism detectors.”

Yep.

Deep-faked students June 25

“Institutionally, schools will struggle with issues of counterfeit human photos and voices causing significant disruptions, particularly from false accusations and cyberbullying on steroids.”

Westfield Spain Hollywood

It means assessments have to change. - June 25

“Single-artifact assignments can be done better by AIs than by students (or at least soon they will be able to).”

Other AI consultants are coming around to this. It’s making its way in to the K-12 AI guidance docs.

Soft Skills — June 25

“There is agreement, however, that (soft) skills such as communication (which may now include human-computer interaction), leadership, and critical thinking will be needed in a world where we all will have 5 AIs who are smarter than us (Lecun) doing our work.”

Challenge the algorithms - June 25

“This “AI-Enabled model” has the potential to liberate students expanding learning opportunities, adapting instruction to student needs, and by removing the control architecture of the in-school day. But it also has the potential to replicate the social control mechanisms of the industrial model in even more insidious ways unless educators pro-actively work with students to provide them with the tools to challenge the new disciplinary nets created by algorithms. This begins by teaching them with and about the technology in ways that empowers them, including how to make choices about its role in their lives.”

Post-Plagiarism —- July 6

“And schools need to think beyond “plagiarism.” In order to prepare students for the “AI world,” schools can’t only worry about getting students to do their “own” work; they have to equip them with the skills and knowledge they’ll need to succeed in the AI world. This will require teaching proper “copilot” skills so that students can take advantage of AIs to enhance their own lives.

See above: Alternative assessments.

AI Universities - July 6

We may soon see the transition to “AI universities.”

No Stopping AI - July 11

“But the academic doors of today’s schools are porous, and the AIs will enter on home computers, phones, iPads, personal laptops, and even Apple watches. While schools are bastions of physical security, today’s intellectual networks are ubiquitous, and there is no controlling the AIs.”

Have you seen the new deal with Apple and Open AI/ChatGPT? AI is not just accessible with every device, but we are starting to see the AIs run locally on the devices.

A billion users July 16

“Across all the tools, a billion+ people will be using these soon.”

I’ll admit, I was sort of wrong here — with the integration in all of Meta’s apps, it’s at least 3 billion.   

Friendly learning bots — July 18

“Here are all the ways you can develop your friendship with the bot…..It will be interesting when this technology gets integrated into learning bots….”

Why did the GPT-4o friendly tutor announcement surprise everyone?

We teach useful things — August 7

In our AI Bootcamp, we focus on upskilling educational leaders and teachers to work well with AI assistants. In our AI Literacy course, we work with students starting in grade 6 to develop the same skills.

AI Assistants became all the rage. Maybe because I wrote that :)

I’ve written more since August, but I’ve been right about that as well.

Suggestions for AI Guidelines — August 29

This is basically what the guidelines that have been issued and are under development include.

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Where are things headed?

While many continue to be surprised by the advances in AI, I think they all follow along the path toward advancing full (or in the ballpark of) human level-intelligence. If you stay focused on that Lense, you will be more prepared and less surprised.

What to learn more?

Follow this blog (I’ve written lot since August) and check out our book (only $9.99!).

The book contextualizes the advance of AI with instructional redesign.