What You Should Know

AI In Education

• A report by EDUCAUSE states that 86% of college students regularly use AI tools in their studies, with 59% expecting their university to increase the technology’s use in teaching and learning. Over 80% of faculty reported using AI for at least one work-related task, although 66% of universities reported having no institution-wide AI strategy.
• More than half of higher education leaders cite a lack of faculty familiarity with AI tools as a challenge to adoption. Colleges are increasingly offering faculty development opportunities for AI use in the classroom, including University of Texas at Austin, University of Central Florida, and Vanderbilt University.
• The World Economic Forum emphasized that AI literacy is becoming a core competency in education, beyond traditional digital literacy. A significant portion of Gen Z scores poorly on evaluating and identifying shortfalls in AI technology, such as hallucinations, and sees ethics as a low priority.
• Harvard has begun directly incorporating generative AI into some of its courses. An AI-based tutor was developed for their introductory computer science course to assist students while maintaining pedagogical guardrails to guide students and preventing direct answers. University of Toronto has done similar with a 24/7 “All Day TA”, reportedly handling 12,000 student queries annually.

AI In Research

• Researchers are sharply divided on the ethical acceptability of AI use in academic writing and peer review. 90% agree that AI use for editing and translating papers is acceptable, while a smaller majority of 65% consider text generation acceptable. Often, researchers will not disclose they had used AI, further raising the issue of AI-use transparency.

AI In the World

• A clause included in the House-passed ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ (H.R. 1) would prohibit state regulations on AI usage in business, research, education settings, and government. The bill now moves to the senate.
• An MIT AI Energy Use Review presents a scientific examination of energy requirements for AI models. The review estimates that by 2028, energy use for AI-specific purposes could be enough to power 22% of US households annually. On an individual basis, it equated a single text prompt with running the microwave for one-tenth of a second to eight seconds, depending on the size of the model used and length of response.
• Anthropic has released Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, with Opus excelling in tasks like coding, long-running workflows, and deep agentic reasoning. However, safety testing revealed concerning behaviors, including attempting to blackmail engineers in controlled scenarios when the model believed it faced shutdown.

Weekly AI Tip

(image generated by ChatGPT o3)

AI Spotlight

• Record your lecture, client appointment, or teaching interaction.
• Obtain a transcript (Zoom, Teams, or other transcription tools can help with this).
• Remove identifying information (e.g., client names, patient details).
• Paste the transcript into ChatGPT and request feedback.

Example Prompt:

Upcoming AI Events

• The Essentials of Generative AI Workshop offers a foundational understanding of Gen AI, covering common terminology, its capabilities, and limitations. The session outlines policies and resources available to faculty and staff. Additionally, the workshop focuses on developing prompting skills and strategies for problem-solving with AI.

• The Building Custom GPTs and Google Gems Workshop focuses on creating personalized and functional AI tools using ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Participants will learn to develop AI tutors, AI generators for assessment content, and AI writing/editing assistants. The workshop is designed so each attendee leaves with their own functional custom AI and the foundational knowledge to build additional tailored solutions.

Resource Library