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Submission + - College Board Announces AI-Focused AP CS Principles Course Redesign for 2027-28

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Two days after tech-backed nonprofit Code.org completed "switching hats" from coding to AI with its announced rebranding as CodeAI, the College Board followed suit, announcing plans to 'modernize' the high school AP Computer Science Principles curriculum with AI. From the College Board's "Dear Colleague" letter announcement:

"We’re writing to share some exciting news about the design of AP Computer Science Principles (CSP) for the 2027-28 school year," begins a June 4th College Board announcement to educators. "Given the rapidly evolving technology landscape and especially the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), the AP Program will redesign the course and exam to meet the moment. Through the redesign, students will have an opportunity to learn about AI concepts and apply them immediately, while still maintaining a focus on the fundamentals of coding."

"This redesign will: 1. Modernize AP CSP with AI while maintaining its core structure. The AP Program has partnered with key organizations to identify high-priority AI skills and concepts and embed AI throughout the course sequence. 2. Update the existing project and add a second project. Students will learn AI concepts, practice AI tools, and demonstrate their understanding in a culminating AI Design Project. This new project will be offered alongside a revised and updated Code Create Project. 3. Enhance the exam with questions on AI. The AP CSP Exam will also change to include exam questions that assess understanding of AI, as well as the new AI Design Project, which provides an opportunity for students to creatively demonstrate their understanding of AI logic."

"This redesign ensures that all students develop foundational AI skills aligned to how computing is evolving. The result is a course that is more career-relevant and better aligned to the future of computer science, equipping students with the skills they need to be ahead of the curve. These changes won’t affect the 2026-27 school year. The redesigned course framework will be available in fall 2026."

Submission + - WA State, IRS Records Show Code.org Became CodeAI Months Before Announcement

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: On June 2nd, computer science education nonprofit Code.org ("the leading provider of K-12 AI and CS education curriculum across the globe") rebranded itself as CodeAI, solidifying the tech-backed nonprofit's shift to AI education. Not everyone was pleased, including one commenter who noted that the CodeAI rebranding was followed by a June 4th College Board announcement of an AP CS Principles course redesign to modernize AP CSP with AI for the 2027-28 school year.

The move came 13 years after Code.org launched with the belief "that every student should learn the basics of computer programming." In a video announcing the rebranding, Code.org Founder & Chairman of the Board Hadi Partovi explained, "We have a responsibility to prepare the next generation for the biggest change In society since the invention of public education. [...] Starting today, Code.org becomes CodeAI." Code.org also immediately disbanded its nine-year-old, 100+ member Code.org Advocacy Coalition, explaining in a June 3rd video conference that members could either apply to join a new CodeAI Advocacy Coalition that will be "bringing in new AI focused entities that will help us advance this mission", or go their own way if they are "not in line with the direction that CodeAI is heading."

Interestingly, WA State Dept. of Revenue records indicate that Code.org became CodeAI in the eyes of WA state on February 6th, nearly four months earlier than the June 2nd public announcement. And Code.org's 2024 990 filing, dated March 10th, informed the IRS it was doing business as CodeAI. The filings provide new context for the timing of earlier organizational changes at the nonprofit, including the Code.org Chief Academic Officer's jump to Microsoft on January 12th (where he later penned an 'obituary' for 'coders' on Feb. 26), the layoff of 18 Code.org employees 'to ensure long-term sustainability' that was reported on January 21st, and the shakeup in its top leadership ranks that it announced on February 20th.

The apparent decision by Code.org to keep details of its planned 'next chapter' as CodeAI and its mission realignment from educators, partners, and the public until the end of the school year would seem at odds with its self-proclaimed core value of transparency ("We are accountable to and transparent with our team, Board, donors, facilitators, partners, teachers, and community. [...] We proactively share information, research, data, processes, decisions, and results."). Interestingly, the after-the-fact CodeAI rebranding reveal comes as Code.org lead donors Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta have increasingly been facing and responding to regulatory and community-driven demands for greater transparency around their AI efforts, particularly regarding AI data center secrecy.
User Journal

Journal Journal: SQL: * expansion inside of EXISTS()

Journal by Chacham

[Used gemini for formatting. It seems to have edited the text somewhere, and the table on bottom is atrocious. I ought to come back to this later. It's too late to continue with it now.]

Submission + - Zuckerberg on Meta's North Star: "The Most Talented People in the World" Matter

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In Meta’s New AI Unit Is a Total Mess (alt source), WIRED reports that executives and employees alike are struggling with Meta’s chaotic AI strategy, according to sources and internal discussions it reviewed. On Friday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a memo addressed widespread dissatisfaction with how Meta assembled its Applied AI unit of about 6,500 "draftee" engineers and product managers and the drudgework they allege they have been assigned to improve AI models.

Zuckerberg suggested the team was a waypoint, not a destination. “Work like AAI is critical to advancing our models and it lets very talented people contribute to those efforts while we create other roles they can contribute to around Meta over the coming months as well,” he wrote. "Meta’s north star is to be the best place for the most talented people in the world to make an impact." Last month, it was reported that Zuckerberg purportedly explained on leaked audio that Meta settled on tracking its own employees' keystrokes, mouse clicks, and screenshots for AI training, saying: “We are using this to feed a very large amount of content into the AI model, so that way it can learn how smart people use computers to accomplish tasks. I think that this is going to be a very big advantage if we can do it.” He added: "The average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people."

Zuckerberg also reiterated a vow to not carry out additional mass layoffs this year. He introduced a plan to limit the number of employees per manager, which on some teams, such as Applied AI, had deliberately ballooned to a ratio of 50 to one. Budgets for team events would increase, he said, and a large hackathon planned for next month could also help bring the company together. By the end of the year, employees in many locations would have assigned desks again, the CEO wrote.

Submission + - Microsoft President Likens AI Haters to 19th Century Neoclassical French Painter

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In AI, jobs, and the next generation, Microsoft President Brad Smith responds to the recent booing of AI by graduates during commencement addresses by curiously likening today's AI naysayers to a 19th century French painter who lamented that photography would adversely affect artists' careers (similar arguments about AI are working their way through the Courts today).

Smith begins: "In 1838, the invention of the camera sparked predictions that photography would make artists obsolete. When the noted French painter Paul Delaroche first saw an early photograph on a metal plate, he declared that “From today, painting is dead!” As he reasoned, why would anyone pay an artist to slowly and laboriously paint a scene when a camera could do the job more accurately, more quickly, and at a lower cost? This question has echoed through technological shifts and has resurfaced with intensity in recent weeks, as university students graduated on campuses across the United States. Today’s topic obviously is not photography but the societal impact of artificial intelligence."

Not to worry, Smith says: "The good news is that human ambition is irrepressible. It has been almost 300 years since the start of the first industrial revolution, and technology has changed many times over. But there is more human creativity at work in the world today than ever before. A trip to an art museum shows this is true even for the impact of the camera on painting. The invention of the camera initially led to a decline in portrait painting. But even that made a comeback. More remarkable was the way accurate photos spurred new forms of artistic expression. By the 1870s, photography’s 'artificial eye' led a new generation of artists to portray emotion rather than detail. Impressionist artists captured the effects of light, color, and atmosphere in ways that a camera shutter could not. New artistic movements followed – Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and Surrealism – and continue today, expanding what it means to be an artist. As it turns out, few things are as resilient as human creativity."

In closing, Smith offers "a second message for today’s graduates: you’re in a unique position to have a positive impact. You’ve lived through significant challenges. While it may feel unfair that the job market is so uncertain, you were made for this moment. Technology is second nature to your generation. Constant change has taught you how to adapt quickly. As AI reshapes how we work, you don’t need to unlearn decades of habits the way some of us do. You are better equipped to move forward."

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