Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission + - College Students Flock to a New Major: AI

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "At M.I.T., a new program called 'artificial intelligence and decision-making' is now the second-most-popular undergraduate major," reports the New York Times. "Artificial intelligence is the hot new college major. This semester, more than 3,000 students enrolled in a new college of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity at the University of South Florida in Tampa. At the University of California, San Diego, 150 first-year students signed up for a new A.I. major. And the State University of New York at Buffalo created a stand-alone 'department of A.I. and society,' which is offering new interdisciplinary degrees in fields like 'A.I. and policy analysis'."

The fast popularization of products like ChatGPT, along with skyrocketing valuations of tech giants like the chip maker Nvidia, is helping to drive the campus A.I. boom. Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft have poured billions of dollars into the technology. And this year, Google and Microsoft announced company efforts to train millions of students and adult workers on A.I."

Submission + - K-12 Teachers Urged to Spread AI Gospel Using Microsoft 'Communications Toolkit'

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Sharing your students' experience builds awareness of AI literacy, shows families the amazing work their kids are doing, and inspires fellow educators to join the adventure. Our Communications Toolkit has everything you need to showcase your Hour of AI on social media, in newsletters, and across your school community," explains Microsoft to K-12 teachers in Friday social media posts announcing the Minecraft Education Hour of AI 2025 Digital Communication Toolkit.

The toolkit urges K-12 teachers participating in December's Hour of AI event — which is sponsored by Microsoft and run by the Microsoft-backed nonprofit Code.org — to use Microsoft-crafted messaging to extend the Hour of AI campaign by evangelizing AI and Microsoft Minecraft Education software in post-event social media posts, school and classroom newsletter messages, and direct messages to families (sample: "Today, our classroom took part in Hour of AI with Minecraft Education’s First Night, and it was incredible!").

The Hour of AI is replacing Code.org's Hour of Code, which was the premier event of Computer Science Education Week from 2013-2024. Microsoft last year boasted of reaching K-12 students with 300 million sessions of its Minecraft Hour of Code tutorials, presumedly helping Minecraft become the first video game to hit 300 million in sales in 2023. The activities for the new Hour of AI include six Microsoft Minecraft Education titles. "Just like the Hour of Code helped families see the promise of computer science," a Code.org press release announcing the activities explained, "the Hour of AI will give parents the tools to make sure our children can use this technology to build, create, and lead. This isn't optional-it's essential if we want our kids to thrive in a future that's already here."

Comment Vulnerability to Trivial Attacks the Real Story? (Score 1) 57

by theodp (#65809585) Attached to: Fired Techie Admits Sabotaging Ex-Employer, Causing $862K In Damage

First saw something like this 30+ years ago - someone grabbed a list of publicly available userIDs from the company's email system and apparently either manually or using a keyboard macro simply tried multiple times to logon with an incorrect password to lock out the entire company's thousands of user and team IDs. The company used mainframe systems/databases with centralized passwords, so didn't take long at all (not even 30 minutes, IIRC) to get everyone back in business. One imagines that such a simple 'attack' - essentially the same as what the guy did some 30 years later in 2021 - would wreak a lot more havoc in today's world with its overwhelmingly-complicated intertwined security layers, which are further compounded by the need to get consensus from a number of parties - e.g., security, risk, compliance, governance, operations, legal - that it's safe to reopen things for business even after a fix is identified. It seems part of this guy's hefty sentence is likely attributable to businesses relying on systems and infrastructure and bureaucracy that are vulnerable to and unable to recover quickly from even trivial 'attacks' like this that leave systems and data untouched, no?

Submission + - We Don't Need No Education [Department], U.S. Dept. of Education Says

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: From Tuesday's U.S. Dept. of Education press release: "The U.S. Department of Education (ED) today announced six new interagency agreements (IAAs) with four agencies to break up the federal education bureaucracy, ensure efficient delivery of funded programs, activities, and move closer to fulfilling the President’s promise to return education to the states. By partnering with agencies that are best positioned to deliver results for students and taxpayers, these IAAs will streamline federal education activities on the legally required programs, reduce administrative burdens, and refocus programs and activities to better serve students and grantees." These new partnerships with the Departments of Labor (DOL), Interior (DOI), Health and Human Services (HHS), and State mark a major step toward improving the management of select ED programs by leveraging partner agencies’ administrative expertise and experience working with relevant stakeholders. These agreements follow a successful workforce development partnership signed with DOL earlier this year, which has created an integrated federal education and workforce system and reduced the need for states to consult multiple federal agencies to effectively manage their programs."

"'The Trump Administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states," said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. "Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission. As we partner with these agencies to improve federal programs, we will continue to gather best practices in each state through our 50-state tour, empower local leaders in K-12 education, restore excellence to higher education, and work with Congress to codify these reforms. Together, we will refocus education on students, families, and schools – ensuring federal taxpayer spending is supporting a world-class education system."

Over at The74, New America Sr. Director of Education Policy Lisa Guernsey isn't buying the argument. She writes: "This week our national leaders decided that education isn’t something that the United States government needs to care about, let alone nourish and strengthen. The Trump administration decided to cut up the U.S. Department of Education, toss various parts into various buckets and cede its obligations to ensure that children and families in our country can gain access to good teachers and schools. Do we really need to worry about elementary and secondary schools anyway? They can simply get tossed into the Department of Labor. Those who work on special education? Plop them over there in Health and Human Services. In this vision of dismemberment, the word “education” is scrubbed from any U.S.-led effort to improve our country. The concept of teaching and learning is not important enough to garner federal attention anymore. Instead, it’s about kids envisioned as workers, with a little bit of health care sprinkled in to make sure their bodies can do the work needed once they grow into adults. This not only acts against Congressional will and statute, it is disastrous for America’s competitiveness and our standing in the world. It is disrespectful to America’s families. And it is catastrophic for our kids and the generation behind them. [...] Think about it: Do we really want to be a country without a Department of Education in the 21st century?"

Submission + - Hour of AI Gives Tech an Infomercial to Show Off Its Wares to Kids, Teachers

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Much as tech-backed nonprofit Code.org's Hour of Code has served as a 60-minute infomercial of sorts for big corporations over the past decade — Microsoft last year boasted of reaching K-12 students with 300M sessions of its Minecraft Hour of Code tutorials (Minecraft became the first video game to hit 300M sales in late 2023) and President Obama led the nation's schoolchildren to a Disney Princess-themed Hour of Code tutorial during the 2014 holiday season (which saw a shamed Barbie lose her crown as the most popular girls' toy to Disney Princesses Elsa and Anna) — so too apparently will its replacement, the Hour of AI ("One moment. One world. Millions of futures to shape."), which will focus on AI literacy rather than CS as it ironically becomes the new flagship event of Computer Science Education Week.

Code.org is expanding its mission this year with the goal of making both K-12 CS and AI a graduation requirement, including promoting AI literacy and usage by students and teachers across all subjects, and the just-released Hour of AI activity lineup (press release) reflects that new pivot to AI (non-AI Hour of Code CS and coding activities from the past 12 years are now stigmatized with the label 'legacy'). Code.org $30M+ Lifetime Supporter Microsoft is offering eight Hour of AI activities, including six Minecraft titles ("Survive your first Minecraft night with an AI Agent! Train it to gather resources, craft tools, and build shelter," is the pitch to kids for Hour of AI: The First Night). Google's AI Quests encourages kids to "step into the shoes of Google researchers using AI to solve real-world challenges" (Google is a Code.org $10M+ Lifetime Supporter). And two Code.org-credited tutorials developed in partnership with Code.org $30M+ Lifetime Supporter Amazon — Dance Party: AI Edition and Music Lab: Jam Session — feature Amazon Music employees as instructors (Code.org's flagship 2025 Hour of AI tutorial, Mix & Move with AI appears to draw material and music artists from these two earlier Code.org + Amazon offerings). Like the Hour of Code, the Hour of AI home page also notes that the event is "Powered by AWS." AI-themed activities are also offered by perennial children's favorites Roblox and Lego.

While not credited with a specific Hour of AI activity, AI leader-of-the-pack OpenAI will have a behind-the-scenes presence (Microsoft will soon hold an investment valued at $135B in OpenAI Group PBC). Not only is OpenAI providing $1M in AI credits for Vibe Coding: Build Your First Game Using AI" in a partnership with Swedish AI startup Lovable (Lovable's investors include OpenAI Board member Adam D'Angelo) and imagi with "the goal of bringing vibe coding to 100m kids globally," it also powers the Khanmigo AI Teacher Tools that are the focus of Khan Academy's Hour of AI activity for teachers, Learn to Generate Great Lesson Plans with Khan Academy, which breathlessly promises teachers they can "Save HOURS of Planning with Khanmigo."

Submission + - Chicago Property Tax Bills Finally Getting Mailed After 'Modernization' Mess

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Nearly four months later than usual thanks to a vendor’s software mess, Cook County, IL (includes Chicago) property tax bills will be mailed by Nov. 14 and be due by Dec. 15, county leaders said. Cook County tax collectors blamed a 10-year-old contract with a Texas-based company called Tyler Technologies for the delays. The contract inked in 2015 was supposed to modernize the billing system within three to five years. The months-long delay left local taxing districts, such as Chicago Public Schools, struggling to bridge costs while the tax bills sat in limbo. CPS borrowed $450 million to cover anticipated property taxes, requiring it to budget $23.2 million for interest on those loans in fiscal year 2026.

Of the delayed modernization effort, Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi said: "It was hard work. You have to go through the brain damage of converting all these different lines from an old mainframe to a new system. This vendor has sometimes made a lot of mistakes, and we have the biggest market based property tax system in the U.S. All of us agreed we’d retire the mainframe this year, but the treasurer and the clerk had their hardest work to do this year. We’re glad that they’re done."

Speaking of government software modernization efforts, how's that planned DOGE rewrite of the Social Security Administration codebase in 'months' going?

Submission + - Code.org Unveils Activities for Inaugural Hour of AI

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Twelve years after it unveiled activities for the inaugural Hour of Code in 2013, tech-backed nonprofit Code.org's unveiled activities for next month's inaugural Hour of AI. From the press release, Hour of AI Unveils 100+ Free Activities to Help Demystify AI for Educators, Families, and Kids:

Today, Code.org and CSforALL unveiled the activity catalog for the first annual Hour of AI, which takes place during Computer Science Education Week (December 8–14, 2025). More than 50 leading tech companies, nonprofits, and foundations are contributing to a suite of activities that will help learners around the world explore the power and possibilities of AI through creativity, play, and problem-solving.

"The next generation can't afford to be passive users of AI – they must be active shapers of it," said Hadi Partovi, CEO and co-founder of Code.org. "The Hour of AI and its roster of incredible partners are empowering students to explore, create, and take ownership of the technology that is shaping their future."

Building on more than a decade of global excitement around the Hour of Code, the Hour of AI marks a new chapter that helps students move from consuming AI to creating with it. With engaging activities from partners like Google, [Microsoft-owned] Minecraft Education, LEGO Education, Scratch Foundation, and Khan Academy, students will have the opportunity to see how AI and computer science work hand-in-hand to fuel imagination, innovation, and impact.

Submission + - UK Secondary Schools Pivoting from Narrowly Focused CS Curriculum to AI Literacy

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The UK Department for Education is "replacing its narrowly focused computer science GCSE with a broader, future-facing computing GCSE [General Certificate of Secondary Education] and exploring a new qualification in data science and AI for 16–18-year-olds." The move aims to correct unintended consequences of a shift made more than a decade ago from the existing ICT (Information and Communications Technology) curriculum, which focused on basic digital skills, to a more rigorous Computer Science curriculum at the behest of major tech firms and advocacy groups to address concerns about the UK’s programming talent pipeline.

The UK pivot from rigorous CS to AI literacy comes as tech-backed nonprofit Code.org leads a similar shift in the U.S., pivoting from its original 2013 mission calling for rigorous CS for U.S. K-12 students to a new mission that embraces AI literacy. Code.org next month will replace its flagship Hour of Code event with a new Hour of AI "designed to bring AI education into the mainstream" with the support of its partners, including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Code.org has pledged to engage 25 million learners with the new Hour of AI this school year.

Comment Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk (Score 3, Interesting) 181

Don't count on help from the Supreme Court on this. Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, 574 U.S. 27 (2014), was a unanimous decision by the United States Supreme Court, ruling that time spent by workers waiting to undergo anti-employee theft security screenings is not "integral and indispensable" to their work, and thus not compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
 
Jesse Busk was among several workers employed by the temp agency Integrity Staffing Solutions to work in Amazon.com's warehouse in Nevada to help package and fulfill orders. At the end of each day, they had to spend about 25 minutes waiting to undergo anti-theft security checks before leaving. Busk and his fellow workers sued their employer, claiming they were entitled to be paid for those 25 minutes under the Fair Labor Standards Act. They argued that the time waiting could have been reduced if more screeners were added, or shifts were staggered so workers did not have to wait for the checks at the same time. Furthermore, since the checks were made to prevent employee theft, they only benefited the employers and the customers, not the employees themselves.

Submission + - UK Replacing Narrowly Focused CS GCSE in Pivot to AI Literacy for Schoolkids

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The UK Department for Education announced this week that it is "replacing the narrowly focused computer science GCSE with a broader, future-facing computing GCSE [General Certificate of Secondary Education] and exploring a new qualification in data science and AI for 16–18-year-olds." The move aims to correct the unintended consequences of a shift made more than a decade ago from the existing ICT (Information and Communications Technology) curriculum, which focused on basic digital skills, to a more rigorous Computer Science curriculum at the behest of major tech firms and advocacy groups like Google, Microsoft, and the British Computer Society, who pushed for a curriculum overhaul to address concerns about the UK’s programming talent pipeline (a similar U.S. talent pipeline crisis was also declared around the same time).

From the Government Response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review: "We will rebalance the computing curriculum as the Review suggests, to ensure pupils develop essential digital literacy whilst retaining important computer science content. Through the reformed curriculum, pupils will know from a young age how computers can be trained using data and they will learn essential digital skills such as AI literacy."

The UK pivot from rigorous CS to AI literacy comes as tech-backed nonprofit Code.org is orchestrating a similar move in the U.S., pivoting from its original 2013 mission calling for rigorous CS for U.S. K-12 students to a new mission that embraces AI literacy. Code.org next month will replace its flagship Hour of Code event with a new Hour of AI "designed to bring AI education into the mainstream" that's supported by AI giants and Code.org donors Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. In September, Code.org pledged to the White House at an AI Education Task Force meeting led by First Lady Melania Trump and attended by U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Google CEO Sundar Pichai (OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was spotted in the audience) that it will engage 25 million learners in the new Hour of AI this school year, build AI pathways in 25 states, and launch a free high school AI course for 400,000 students by 2028.

Submission + - The Largest Theft In Human History?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In OpenAI Moves To Complete Potentially The Largest Theft In Human History, Zvi Mowshowitz opines on the 'recapitalization' of OpenAI. Mowshowitz writes:

"OpenAI is now set to become a Public Benefit Corporation, with its investors entitled to uncapped profit shares. Its nonprofit foundation will retain some measure of control and a 26% financial stake [valued at approximately $130 billion], in sharp contrast to its previous stronger control and much, much larger effective financial stake. The value transfer is in the hundreds of billions, thus potentially the largest theft in human history. [...] I am in no way surprised by OpenAI moving forward on this, but I am deeply disgusted and disappointed they are being allowed (for now) to do so."

"Many media and public sources are calling this a win for the nonprofit. [...] This is mostly them being fooled. They’re anchoring on OpenAI’s previous plan to far more fully sideline the nonprofit. This is indeed a big win for the nonprofit compared to OpenAI’s previous plan. But the previous plan would have been a complete disaster, an all but total expropriation. It’s as if a mugger demanded all your money, you talked them down to giving up half your money, and you called that exchange a ‘change that recapitalized you.’"

Mowshowitz also points to an OpenAI announcement, The Next Chapter of the Microsoft–OpenAI Partnership, which describes how Microsoft will fare from the deal: "Microsoft holds an investment in OpenAI Group PBC valued at approximately $135 billion, representing roughly 27 percent on an as-converted diluted basis, inclusive of all owners—employees, investors, and the OpenAI Foundation."

Submission + - Code.org Vows to Shape Policy to Prep Kids for AI as CS Shifts Away from Coding

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "This year marks a pivotal moment, for Code.org and for the future of education," explains tech-backed nonprofit Code.org's just released 2024-25 Impact Report. "AI is reshaping every aspect of our world, yet most students still lack the opportunity to learn how it works, manage it, or shape its future. For over a decade, Code.org has expanded access to computer science education worldwide, serving as a trusted partner for policymakers, educators, and advocates. Now, as the focus of computer science shifts from coding to AI, we are evolving to prepare every student for an AI-powered world. [...] As this year’s impact shows, Code.org is driving change at every level — from classrooms to statehouses to ministries of education worldwide. [...] When we first launched Hour of Code in 2013, it changed how the world saw computer science. Today, AI is transforming the future of work across every field, yet most classrooms aren’t ready to teach students AI literacy. [...] That’s why, in 2025, the Hour of Code is becoming the Hour of AI, a bold, global event designed to move learners from AI consumers to confident, creative problem-solvers. [...] Our ambitious goal for the 2025-26 school year: Engage 25 million learners, mobilize 100,000 educators, and partner with 1,000 U.S. districts. The Hour of AI is only the beginning. In the year ahead, we will continue building tools, shaping policy, and inspiring movements to ensure every student, everywhere, has the opportunity to not just use AI, but to understand it, shape it, and lead with it."

Interesting, Code.org's pivot from coding to AI literacy comes as former R.I. Governor and past U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo — an early member of Code.org's Governors for CS partnership who was all in on K-12 CS in 2016 — suggested the Computer Science for All initiative might have been a dud. “For a long time, everyone said, ‘let’s make everybody a coder,’” Raimondo said at a Harvard Institute of Politics forum. “We’re going to predict this is where the skills are going to be. Everyone should be a software coder. I don’t know, it doesn’t look necessarily like a super idea right now with AI.”

As it pivots from coding to AI with the blessing of its tech donors, the Code.org Impact Report notes the nonprofit spent a staggering $276.8 million on its K-12 CS efforts from 2013-2025, including $41M for Diversity and Global Marketing, $69.9M for Curriculum + Learning Platform, $122.8M on Partnership + Professional Learning, $25M for Government Affairs, and $18.1M on Global Curriculum (the nonprofit reported assets of $75M in an Aug 2024 IRS filing).

Submission + - Analytics Platform Databricks Joins Amazon, Microsoft in AI Demo Hall of Shame

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: If there was an AI Demo Hall of Shame, the first inductee would have to be Amazon, whose demo to support its CEO's claims that Amazon Q Code Transformation AI saved it 4,500 developer-years and an additional $260 million in 'annualized efficiency gains' by automatically and accurately upgrading code to a more current version of Java showcased a program that didn't even spell 'Java' correctly (it was instead called 'Jave'). Also worthy of a spot is Microsoft, whose AI demo of a Copilot-driven Excel school exam analysis for educators reassured a teacher they needn't be concerned about the student who received a 27% test score, autogenerating a chart to back up its claim.

Today's nominee for the AI Demo Hall of Shame inductee is analytics platform Databricks for the NYC Taxi Trips Analysis it's been showcasing on its Data Science page since last November. Not only for its choice of a completely trivial case study that requires no 'Data Science' skills — find and display the ten most expensive and longest taxi rides — but also for the horrible AI-generated bar chart used to present the results of the simple ranking that deserves its own spot in the Graph Hall of Shame. In response to a prompt of "Now create a new bar chart with matplotlib for the most expensive trips," the Databricks AI Assistant dutifully complies with the ill-advised request, spewing out Python code to display the ten rides on a nonsensical bar chart whose continuous x-axis hides points sharing the same distance (one might also question why no annotation is provided to call out or explain the 3 trips with a distance of 0 miles that are among the ten most expensive rides, with fares of $260, $188, and $105).

Looked at with a critical eye, all three of these examples used to sell data scientists, educators, management, investors, and Wall Street on AI by Amazon (market cap $2.32 trillion), Microsoft (market cap $3.87 trillion), and Databricks (valuation $100+ billion) would likely raise eyebrows rather than impress their intended audiences. So, is AI fever so great that it sells itself and companies needn't even bother reviewing their AI demos to see if they make sense?

Slashdot Top Deals

The opulence of the front office door varies inversely with the fundamental solvency of the firm.

Close