The George Washington University Forms AI Advisory Councils From Each School

The George Washington University (GWU) formed this year an advisory council of faculty from each school to improve the use of AI tools in their teaching and student learning and provide best practices. Managed by the Instructional Core within the Libraries & Academic Innovation (LAI) office of GW, led by Geneva Henry., these advisory councils provide input on AI resources and training for professors aligning with the guidelines released by the Office of the Provost in April 2023. These guidelines state that using AI to study is permissible, but submitting AI-generated material for an assignment or using AI during an assessment is cheating. The decision of whether or not to allow AI in courses is individual to each professor. Douglas Crawford, a member of the council and an assistant professor of interior architecture, said to The GW Hatchet that the goal of the council is to act as a knowledge base for faculty looking to implement or restrict AI use in their courses. He said he encourages his students to use AI as a starting point for projects because it can provide more tailored inspiration than platforms like Google Images or Pinterest. John Helveston, a member of the council and an assistant professor of engineering management and systems engineering, said the introduction of AI into classrooms has pushed educators to rethink what they want to accomplish in classrooms and how they organize course content in order to make students think critically. Lorena Barba, a member of the council and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, said the council had a "grassroots" origin that bodes well for faculty’s willingness to collaborate in discussions surrounding AI in a way that hasn’t been commonly seen in universities. "GW has a unique opportunity to be at the forefront, and many members of the AI Advisory Council are courageously embracing the challenge," Lorena Barba said. .

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D2L Brightspace Pilots Generative AI Tools for Teachers

D2L Brightspace presented to selected customers new generative AI tools to generate practice and quiz questions as part of its LMS platform. With this new program, which will be in testing mode through the summer of 2024, teachers are able to set quiz questions before making them available to students, giving them more safety and control oversight. The beta program is based on D2L's "Responsible AI Principles" document. "This automated question generation capability can make it easier for instructors to assess learners in the moment. It is the initial step in expanding our product roadmap with cutting-edge generative AI to help change the way the world learns," said Stephen Laster, D2L president. .  

Khanmigo Struggles with Basic Math, Showed a Report

Khanmigo, Khan Academy's ChatGPT-powered tutoring bot, makes frequent calculation errors, The Wall Street Journal reported after testing it. "We tested an AI tutor for kids. It struggled with basic math," wrote the paper. Last year, Educator Sal Khan promised to "give every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor." "Asking ChatGPT to do math is sort of like asking a goldfish to ride a bicycle—it’s just not what ChatGPT is for," said Tom McCoy, a professor at Yale University who studies AI. According to the paper, "Khanmigo frequently made basic arithmetic errors, miscalculating subtraction problems such as 343 minus 17. It also didn’t consistently know how to round answers or calculate square roots. Khanmigo typically didn’t correct mistakes when asked to double-check solutions." Now being piloted by about 65,000 students in 44 school districts, Khanmigo emphasizes to students and teachers that it is imperfect. Sal Khan said he expects "a million or two million" students to be using it by next school year at a price to schools of $35 a student. Unlike ChatGPT, Khanmigo is trained not to give students the right answer but to guide them through problems. It offers tutoring in third grade and up in math, language arts, history and science. It can give feedback on student essays, engage in simulated dialogue as famous literary characters and debate contemporary issues. In testing the product, the WSJ asked Khanmigo for help finding the length of the third side of a right triangle, a problem that students would likely encounter in eighth-grade math. Khanmigo correctly identified the Pythagorean theorem, a2 + b2 = c2, as crucial to finding the answer. When asked for the solution the bot offered responses such as: "I’m here to help you learn, not just give answers!" But Khanmigo struggled with math operations. When trying to solve a right triangle with a hypotenuse of 27 units and a side of 17, a reporter offered the wrong answer (430 rather than 440) to 272 minus 172. "Excellent!" Khanmigo responded. Later, it accepted the incorrect answer to the square root of 440. In another instance, Khanmigo constructed its own triangle problem with a hypotenuse of 15 units and a leg of nine. But when a reporter correctly said that 152 minus 92 equals 144, Khanmigo suggested the response was wrong. "I see where you’re coming from, but let’s take another look at the subtraction," it said. .

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Amazon Launched 'Rufus', an AI-Powered Shopping Assistant

Amazon launched this month in beta an AI-powered shopping assistant called 'Rufus', trained on the company product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&As, and information from across the web. It's available to select customers when they next update their Amazon Shopping app. Built on an internal LLM specialized for shopping, this conversational assistant answers customer questions on a variety of shopping needs and products, provide comparisons, and make recommendations based on conversational context. "Rufus knows Amazon’s selection inside and out, and can bring it all together with information from across the web to help them make more informed purchase decisions," said Amazon. "With Rufus, customers can: Learn what to look for while shopping product categories: Customers can conduct more general product research on Amazon, asking questions such as “what to consider when buying headphones?”, “what to consider when detailing my car at home?”, or “what are clean beauty products?” and receive helpful information to guide their shopping mission. Shop by occasion or purpose: Customers can search for and discover products based on activity, event, purpose, and other specific use cases by asking a range of questions such as “what do I need for cold weather golf?” or “I want to start an indoor garden.” Rufus suggests shoppable product categories—from golf base layers, jackets, and gloves to seed starters, potting mix, and grow lights—and related questions that customers can click on to conduct more specific searches. Get help comparing product categories: Customers can now ask “what’s the difference between lip gloss and lip oil?” or “compare drip to pour-over coffee makers” so they can find the type of product that best suits their needs and make even more confident purchase decisions. Find the best recommendations: Customers can ask for recommendations for exactly what they need, such as “what are good gifts for Valentine’s Day?” or “best dinosaur toys for a 5-year-old.” Rufus generates results tailored to the specific question and makes it quick and easy for customers to browse more refined results. Ask questions about a specific product while on a product detail page: Customers can use Rufus to quickly get answers to specific questions about individual products when they are viewing the product’s detail page, such as “is this pickleball paddle good for beginners?”, or “is this jacket machine washable?”, or “is this cordless drill easy to hold?”. Rufus will generate answers based on listing details, customer reviews, and community Q&As." TechCrunch said that it’s worth pointing out that Amazon’s AI chatbot Q for businesses has struggled, producing hallucinations (false information) and revealing confidential data.

OpenAI Triples Its Valuation and Now It's Valued at $80 Billion

OpenAI plans to sell existing shares in a tender offer led by venture firm Thrive Capital, in a deal that values the San Francisco-based company at $80 million, tripling its valuation in less than ten months, The New York Times reported. Under this deal, employees will be able to cash out their shares. Early last year, the venture capital firms Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and K2 Global agreed to buy OpenAI shares in a tender offer, valuing the company at around $29 billion. Last January, Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI, bringing its total investment in the San Francisco start-up to $13 billion. Since then, Anthropic, an OpenAI rival, has raised $6 billion from Google and Amazon. Cohere, a start-up founded by former Google researchers, raised $270 million, bringing its total funding to more than $440 million. Inflection AI, founded by a former Google executive, also raised a $1.3 billion round, bringing its total to $1.5 billion. .

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The AI-Native University

Blueprint for the Institution of the Future

A practical guide for leaders reimagining higher education with AI at the core — not as an add-on, but as the foundation for how students learn, faculty teach, and institutions govern.

By Mikel Amigot

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