Welcome to Episode 298 (“AI Overlords Loom”) of the EdTech Situation Room from June 14, 2023, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com/after) discussed the past week’s technology news through an educational lens. In this week’s episode, Jason and Wes started by sharing their “Geeks of the Week,” including the Whisper voice transcription app and the link shortening service short.io. They then dove into recent Apple news, discussing the positive reviews of the new 15-inch MacBook Air and the dropping of support for many older Intel Macs in the upcoming macOS update. A good portion of the episode focused on AI developments, including Microsoft’s rushed integration of ChatGPT into Bing despite warnings from OpenAI, new AI regulations being developed in the EU, estimates that AI poses a 20-30% risk of catastrophe (P-doom), Amazon using AI to crack down on fake reviews, and more. Jason and Wes emphasized the need for thoughtful conversations and reasonable regulations around these powerful AI technologies. The hosts announced they would be taking a multi-week summer break. In the meantime, past episodes are still published across platforms like YouTube and podcast feeds. To find the hosts during the break, one could look for @techsavvyteach on Twitter for Jason and www.westfryer.com/after for Wes. The show was live-streamed and archived simultaneously on YouTube Live as well as Facebook Live via StreamYard.com. Please follow @edtechSR on Twitter and @edtechsr@mastodon.education on Mastodon for updates, and join LIVE on Wednesday nights if you can. All shownotes are available on edtechSR.com/links. AI Disclosure: An initial draft of this episode summary was generated using youtubetranscript.com and claude.ai.
Shownotes
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- Jason Neiffer (Mastodon: mastodon.cloud/@neif – Twitter: @techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
- Wes Fryer (Mastodon: mastodon.cloud/@wfryer Twitter: @wfryer) – wesfryer.com/after
- Let us serve you, but don’t bring us down (Archive.org blog; 29 May 2023)
- OpenAI reportedly warned Microsoft about rushing GPT-4 integration into Bing (Engadget; 13 June 2023)
- Amazon cracks down on fake reviews with AI (BBC; 12 June 2023)
- E.U. Takes a Step Closer to Passing the World’s Most Comprehensive AI Regulation (Time; 14 June 2023)
- The US Senate is working to get up to speed on AI basics ahead of any legislation (CNN Business; 8 June 2023)
- Adobe is so confident its Firefly generative AI won’t breach copyright that it’ll cover your legal bills (Fast Company, 8 June 2023)
- The best MacBooks for 2023: How to pick the best Apple laptop (Engadget; 13 June 2023)
- macOS Sonoma drops support for another wide swath of Intel Macs (Ars Technica; 5 June 2023) – OpenCore Legacy Patcher
- Here’s what Mark Zuckerberg thinks about Apple’s Vision Pro (The Verge; 8 June 2023)
- Apple’s Face Computer + Crypto Chaos + How Teens Really Feel About Social Media (Hard Fork Podcast, 9 June 2023)
- The best hidden ChromeOS features I use on my Chromebook (About Chromebooks; 13 June 2023)
- ‘Minecraft’ for ChromeOS leaves early access, works on more machines (Engadget; 7 June 2023)
- Dozens of popular Minecraft mods found infected with Fracturiser malware (ArsTechnica, 7 June 2023)
- Jason’s Geeks of the Week: https://short.io/ – https://mizage.com/divvy/
- Wes’ Geek of the Week: Whisperboard
