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Submission + - Trickle-Down Economics: Giving Kids the Best AI Education $5 Gift Cards Can Buy

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The past week saw AI-fueled quarterly earnings announcements from the likes of Amazon ($143.5B revenue, $1.86T market cap), Microsoft ($61.9B revenue, $2.93T market cap), and Google ($80.5B revenue, $1.11T market cap). All three are advisors to Code.org's TeachAI initiative, which aims to help teachers incorporate AI into K-12 CS education. Towards that end, TeachAI and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) are now looking to give kids the best AI education 100 $5 gift cards can buy.

From the CSTA Ohio website: "Shape the future of CS Education in an age of AI! CSTA and TeachAI invite K-12 CS teachers to share their expertise and insights in a short survey. Your responses will be anonymous and contribute to a greater understanding of what’s happening in CS classrooms today. What works? What do we still need to know? What are the risks and benefits? How can we prepare our students to learn and thrive in an age of AI? We will use this information to help us develop guidance for educators that will be released at the CSTA Conference in July 2024. The first 100 respondents will receive a $5 gift card."

TeachAI also receives support from the Bill ($126.8B net worth) and Melinda ($11B net worth) Gates Foundation ($75B endowment). So, is trickle-down economics an effective K-12 AI education funding strategy?

Submission + - Bill Gates Is Still Pulling the Strings at Microsoft

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: According to Business Insider, reports of the death of Bill Gates' influence at Microsoft have been greatly exaggerated: "Publicly, [Bill] Gates has been almost entirely out of the picture at Microsoft since 2021, following allegations that he had behaved inappropriately toward female employees. In fact, Business Insider has learned, Gates has been quietly orchestrating much of Microsoft's AI revolution from behind the scenes. Current and former executives say Gates remains intimately involved in the company's operations — advising on strategy, reviewing products, recruiting high-level executives, and nurturing Microsoft's crucial relationship with Sam Altman, the cofounder and CEO of OpenAI. In early 2023, when Microsoft debuted a version of its search engine Bing turbocharged by the same technology as ChatGPT, throwing down the gauntlet against competitors like Google, Gates, executives said, was pivotal in setting the plan in motion. While Nadella might be the public face of the company's AI success — the Oz who built the yellow-brick road to a $3 trillion juggernaut — Gates has been the man behind the curtain."

"Today, Gates remains close with Altman, who visits his home a few times a year, and OpenAI seeks his counsel on developments. There's a 'tight coupling' between Gates and OpenAI, a person familiar with the relationship said. 'Sam and Bill are good friends. OpenAI takes his opinion and consult overall seriously.' OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood confirmed OpenAI continues to meet with Gates."

Among the three new members named to OpenAI's Board of Directors in March 2024 following Altman's return to the company was Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And in January, Microsoft exec Dee Templeton joined OpenAI’s board as Microsoft's non-voting observer as part of the OpenAI boardroom revamp. Templeton is an advisor to Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, who has been credited with brokering the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership. Talking to Bill Gates in a March 2023 podcast, Scott shared a secret: "By the time this podcast airs, OpenAI will have made their announcement to the world about GPT-4 (prompting Gates to declare The Age of AI Has Begun), but I want to sort of set the stage. The unveiling of the first instance of GPT-4 outside of OpenAI was actually to you last August at a dinner that you hosted with Reid [Hoffman] and Sam Altman and Greg Brockman and Satya [Nadella] and a whole bunch of other folks [including Scott]. Earlier that same month, a Microsoft spokesperson downplayed a report by The Information on Gates' role in the Microsoft-OpenAI pact.

Submission + - Microsoft Says Monolithic Architecture Impeded Its K-12 CS Racial Equity Goals

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In June 2020, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella outlined a series of commitments designed to address the racial injustice and inequity experienced by racial and ethnic minorities in the US, including Black and African American communities. "Over the next five years," Nadella wrote, "we will expand in 13 states and the District of Columbia the Microsoft TEALS industry volunteer program to bring computer science education to an additional 620 high schools primarily serving Black and African American students."

But standing in the way of that expansion commitment, according to a new Microsoft blog post on Turning to Microsoft Azure to Put Software Engineers in High School Classrooms, was the TEALS Operational Platform (TOP). "Legacy TOP couldn’t support the directive," Microsoft explains. "TOP was about to be outdated and out of support; it had more than 500 bugs, and accessibility improvements were needed. Furthermore, it couldn’t perform well with all the data it was handling. 'The TOP legacy system was at risk of breaking down, posing significant risk to the program’s operations along with system security, reliability, and availability,' [Sr. Product Manager Emily] Fishkind says. Importantly, it couldn’t scale. The original TOP that had enabled the program’s early development was now holding it back from further growth and impact."

In response, Microsoft recently revamped the TEALS Operational Platform and says the new built-on-Microsoft-Azure TOP vNext platform allows regional managers of TEALS to incorporate many more schools, which will allow the company to get many more Microsoft and other software engineer volunteers into classrooms. "The adoption of microservices architecture in TOP vNext protects TEALS from the risk of total system breakdown, offering a more resilient and stable system," Microsoft explains, describing legacy TOP as an outdated system posing security risks by comparison. "The traditional monolithic architecture, where a single malfunction could cause a complete system failure, has become obsolete. With microservices, TEALS is now immune to total system breakdowns as each component operates independently and can continue functioning even if one component experiences issues. This independence not only increases system reliability but also facilitates efficient testing and maintenance processes."

Submission + - Tesla lays off 'more than 10%' of its global workforce (electrek.co)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: “We don’t know which specific teams will be most or least affected by Tesla’s layoffs, but two well-known Tesla executives are now missing the “Tesla-affiliated” badge on twitter – Drew Baglino and Rohan Patel.”

Submission + - Amazon Board Member Andrew Ng Pushing States for CS+AI HS Graduation Requirement

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "We're pleased to welcome Dr. Andrew Ng to our Board of Directors effective April 9, 2024," Amazon announced last week, noting that AI legend Ng is the Managing General Partner of AI Fund, a venture studio that supports entrepreneurs to build AI companies." Among AI Fund's investments is Kira Learning, a STEM-focused K-12 education publisher that aims to transform computer science and AI education for young learners. Kira, where Ng is Chairman, is partnering with the State of Tennessee to implement the state's new computer science high school graduation requirement. Tennessee lawmakers earned praise in a VentureBeat op ed (Schools Should Teach AI to Every Child) penned by Ng and Kira CEO and co-founder Andrea Pasinetti. Ng and Pasinetti were both signatories to a letter issued by the CEOs for CS, part of a campaign coordinated by tech-backed nonprofit Code.org that was credited with pressuring the nation's Governors into signing a compact agreeing to make their states' children more CS-savvy (signers included TN Gov Bill Lee). Ng's and Kira's efforts to convince state officials of the need to make CS a high school graduation requirement don't stop there.

News sites, state legislature websites, and social media have noted the lobbying efforts of CS Forward, an advocacy group that calls for "Computer Science Education In Every State" and notes it "unites non-profits, educators, companies, and community leaders in advocating for state computer science graduation requirements." On its About page, CS Forward explains, "Our mission is to ensure every K-12 student masters CS and AI coding. We're here to influence state legislation, budget allocations and shape public policy." A graphic on the page hints at the advocacy group's ties to Kira Learning, as does the presence of Kira Chairman Ng and Kira co-founder and Director of AI Applications Jagriti Agrawal on CS Forward's Advisory Board (Kira's Head of Public Affairs Dave Brown also does double-duty as the Director of CS Forward). CS Forward recently celebrated a legislative victory that saw the Louisiana House of Representatives vote 102-1 to pass a CS high school graduation requirement. A graphic circulated on Twitter alerting the LA Senate of the near-unanimous vote sported the logos of CS Forward, Kira, Code.org, and Code.org Platinum Supporters ($3+ million) Amazon & Microsoft. California State legislature records note that the same five groups registered support for requiring CS for high school graduation in CA. CS Forward LinkedIn posts cite additional efforts to pass bills expanding CS education and making it a high school graduation requirement in Indiana (mission accomplished), Washington (defeated, despite help from Code.org), Iowa, and Minnesota.

Ng has argued that "Laws to ensure AI applications are safe, fair, and transparent are needed." Which begs the question: Are laws also needed to ensure K-12 AI+CS education lobbying is transparent?

Submission + - Teen Girls Confront an Epidemic of Deepfake Nudes in Schools

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: At Macworld Expo 1998, the NY Times reported, Steve Jobs unveiled new software that he explained could be used to give your daughters a Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover (video). A quarter of a century later, the NY Times reports that middle and high school students are using AI software to fabricate explicit nude images of female classmates and share the doctored pictures.

From the article: "Blindsided last year by the sudden popularity of A.I.-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, schools across the United States scurried to contain the text-generating bots in an effort to forestall student cheating. Now a more alarming A.I. image-generating phenomenon is shaking schools. Boys in several states have used widely available 'nudification' apps to pervert real, identifiable photos of their clothed female classmates, shown attending events like school proms, into graphic, convincing-looking images of the girls with exposed A.I.-generated breasts and genitalia. In some cases, boys shared the faked images in the school lunchroom, on the school bus or through group chats on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, according to school and police reports."

So, to paraphrase the flying car trope: They promised us AI would help all students achieve their educational goals, instead we got deepfake nudes and plagiarism and cheating.

Submission + - Code.org Launches AI Teaching Assistant for Grades 6-10 in Stanford Partnership 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: From a Wednesday press release: "Code.org, in collaboration with The Piech Lab at Stanford University, launched today its AI Teaching Assistant, ushering in a new era of computer science instruction to support teachers in preparing students with the foundational skills necessary to work, live and thrive in an AI world. [...] Launching as a part of Code.org's leading Computer Science Discoveries (CSD) curriculum [for grades 6-10], the tool is designed to bolster teacher confidence in teaching computer science." EdWeek reports that in a limited pilot project involving twenty teachers nationwide, the AI computer science grading tool cut one middle school teacher's grading time in half. Code.org is now inviting an additional 300 teachers to give the tool a try. "Many teachers who lead computer science courses," EdWeek notes, "don’t have a degree in the subject—or even much training on how to teach it—and might be the only educator in their school leading a computer science course."

Stanford's Piech Lab is headed by assistant professor of CS Chris Piech, who also runs the wildly-successful free Code in Place MOOC (30,000+ learners and counting), which teaches fundamentals from Stanford’s flagship introduction to Python course. Prior to coming up with the new AI teaching assistant, which automatically assesses Code.org students' JavaScript game code, Piech worked on a Stanford Research team that partnered with Code.org nearly a decade ago to create algorithms to generate hints for K-12 students trying to solve Code.org's Hour of Code block-based programming puzzles (2015 paper). And several years ago, Piech's lab again teamed with Code.org on Play-to-Grade, which sought to "provide scalable automated grading on all types of coding assignments" by analyzing the game play of Code.org students' projects. Play-to-Grade, a 2022 paper noted, was "supported in part by a Stanford Hoffman-Yee Human Centered AI grant" for AI Tutors to Help Prepare Students for the 21st Century Workforce. That project also aimed to develop a "Super Teaching Assistant" for Piech's Code in Place MOOC. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who was present for the presentation of the 'AI Tutors' work he and his wife funded, is a Code.org Diamond Supporter ($1+ million).

Submission + - Popular xz compression utility compromised (yahoo.com)

Submitted by EmagGeek
EmagGeek writes: "German software developer Andres Freund was running some detailed performance tests last month when he noticed odd behavior in a little known program. What he found when he investigated has sent shudders across the software world and drawn attention from tech executives and government officials.

Freund, who works for Microsoft out of San Francisco, discovered that the latest version of the open source software program XZ Utils had been deliberately sabotaged by one of its developers, a move that could have carved out a secret door to millions of servers across the internet."

Submission + - AI's Impact on CS Education Likened to Calculator's Impact on Math Education

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In Generative AI and CS Education, the new Global Head and VP of Google.org Maggie Johnson writes: "There is a common analogy between calculators and their impact on mathematics education, and generative AI and its impact on CS education. Teachers had to find the right amount of long-hand arithmetic and mathematical problem solving for students to do, in order for them to have the “number sense” to be successful later in algebra and calculus. Too much focus on calculators diminished number sense. We have a similar situation in determining the 'code sense' required for students to be successful in this new realm of automated software engineering. It will take a few iterations to understand exactly what kind of praxis students need in this new era of LLMs to develop sufficient code sense, but now is the time to experiment."

Johnson's CACM article echoes comments she made in a featured talk called The Future of Computational Thinking at last year's Blockly Summit (Blockly is the Google technology that powers drag-and-drop coding IDE's used for K-12 CS education, including Scratch and Code.org). Envisioning a world where AI generates code and humans proofread it, Johnson explained: "One can imagine a future where these generative coding systems become so reliable, so capable, and so secure that the amount of time doing low-level coding really decreases for both students and for professionals. So, we see a shift with students to focus more on reading and understanding and assessing generated code and less about actually writing it. [...] I don't anticipate that the need for understanding code is going to go away entirely right away [...] I think there will still be at least in the near term a need to understand read and understand code so that you can assess the reliabilities, the correctness of generated code. So, I think in the near term there's still going to be a need for that." In the following Q&A, Johnson is caught by surprise when asked whether there will even be a need for Blockly at all in the AI-driven world she describes, which she concedes there may not be.

Johnson's call to embrace AI to "raise the level of abstraction for software engineers" to boost their productivity comes as she exits the Board of Code.org, the tech-backed K-12 CS education nonprofit that pushed coding — including Java — into K-12 schools, but deviated a bit from their 'rigorous CS' mission last year to launch a new TeachAI initiative with tech industry partners to convince K-12 schools to embrace AI to increase the productivity of teachers and students not only in CS, but also in all other areas of education. Johnson's departure from Code.org — she was a founding Board member in 2013 — follows that of Microsoft President Brad Smith, Code.org's other founding Board member from industry, who has been focused on promoting Microsoft's AI efforts. Unlike Google, Microsoft is still represented on Code.org's Board by CTO Kevin Scott, who is credited with forging Microsoft's OpenAI partnership (with Smith and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella) and whose assistant Dee Templeton joined OpenAI's Board as Microsoft's nonvoting observer in January following Sam Altman's reinstatement as OpenAI's CEO. Hey, it's a small K-12 CS and AI education world!

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