Deming Tells Class of 2030 AI Will Bring About a New Age for American Universities
Harvard College Dean David J. Deming told members of the Class of 2030 that they were entering a “third era” of higher education in remarks at an abbreviated Convocation ceremony Tuesday afternoon — arguing that artificial intelligence would fundamentally change the role universities play in American society.
In his remarks, Deming divided the history of higher education into two eras. In the 1600s, he said, Harvard stood out because of the number of books it had accumulated — notable in an era where access to information was limited to a select few.
But as knowledge became more widely accessible and society increasingly specialized, Deming argued that universities have become places where expertise, rather than general knowledge, was cultivated — sometimes at the cost of a unified community. ...
The rise of AI, he argued, is prompting another shift in the role of higher education, as technology makes expertise increasingly accessible and places greater value on collaborative and communal learning. ...
“I believe that in this new, third era of undergraduate education, we should lean into our strengths and become radically more communal, enabling other forms of learning in which technology is of little or no use,” he said.
Deming has previously argued on his personal podcast that social skills, including collaboration and effective communication, will become increasingly valuable in the workplace as AI is more widely adopted. ...
See the full story here: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/9/2/deming-convocation-address/
New York City Public Schools banning AI use through middle school starting this year
... The nation's largest school district said it will begin the school year next week with a sweeping ban on AI for students in in 2-K through eighth grade.
In a statement to ABC News, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that the city is implementing a moratorium on generative AI for students in pre-school or 2-K through eighth grade and will spend the next year "studying the impacts of this technology."
Mamdani wrote in part, “the tech industry wants us to believe that A.I.-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary.”
“We do not see it that way,” he added. ...
New York City Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said the measure will help restore the critical thinking skills students need to graduate.
“We’re standing firmly in our decision to not conflate innovation with more tech, and we’re going to lead over the next year with evidence and make sure technology serves learning -- not the other way around,” Samuels wrote in a statement. ...
See the full story here: https://abcnews.com/Technology/new-york-city-public-schools-banning-ai-middle/story?id=136134872
How schools are handling AI, screen time and slashes to the Department of Education
...
ARMAGHAN KHAN: Technology is kind of the backbone of my curriculum. I would say about 75% of our work was on some kind of screen-based activity.
SHAH: In the past, his students have done large-scale science experiments right on their laptops. He says he has space in his classroom for in-person experiments, but no budget for them. And then there are also families of students with disabilities who are concerned. We spoke to one high schooler with dyslexia who says screens have revolutionized school for her.
SORAYA MARTIN: I started getting really good grades. And I had so much more to say, and it made me feel more confident in myself.
SHAH: That's Soraya Martin. She uses tools like speech-to-text to help her read and write. She worries screen time limits will mean she will fall behind again. ...
See the full story here: https://www.npr.org/2026/08/30/nx-s1-5938800/how-schools-are-handling-ai-screen-time-and-slashes-to-the-department-of-education
AUTONOMOUS LAMP FEELS LIKE A PIXAR CHARACTER BROUGHT TO LIFE — WITH AI FOR A BRAIN
...And perhaps more importantly, it moves in a way that makes it remarkably difficult not to treat it like a little creature sitting on your desk.
Lamp can hesitate before turning to look at you. Tell it something shocking and it flinches, flashes white, then sags before settling into a slow blue glow. Move a coffee cup across the desk and its head follows it. Double-tap its head and it reacts as though you’re petting it.
It feels a little like an animated character brought to life.
And yes, it is still a lamp. ...
Autonomous Lamp is priced at US$499, discounted from its stated US$999 price, with free shipping scheduled to begin from 24 September 2026. ...
See the full story here: https://www.digitalreviews.net/news/pressers/autonomous-lamp-embodied-ai-robot-desk-lamp/
AI-generated Chinese short film goes viral by turning monsters into a story about people
... The 26-minute film follows a historian tasked with investigating and documenting yaoguai (monsters). As he delves deeper, he discovers that the so-called monsters are actually ordinary people suffering from famine, forced labor and hardship. Faced with a dilemma - recording the truth could put them in greater danger, while portraying them as monsters could save their lives but erase their real stories from history - he chooses to protect them turning them into "monsters." ...
The film first attracted attention for its AI-generated visuals, with its consistent character designs, ancient settings and cinematic scenes showcasing new possibilities for AI-assisted animation. According to creator "Qingguadan," the project was made with the help of several AI tools, including ByteDance's Seedance 2.5 video generation model, OpenAI's GPT Image tool and Jimeng AI, a Chinese AI creation platform that provides text-to-image and text-to-video generation services. ...
"Compared with works that simply showcase AI effects, content that truly attracts viewers needs to build an emotional connection through characters and storytelling," Li said. ...
See the full story here: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202608/1369011.shtml
TIME100 AI 2026
Meet the innovators, leaders, and thinkers reshaping our world through groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence.
See the full story here: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/
South Korea’s ‘AI for All’ Push Gives Free Access to Every Citizen
South Korea plans to give its entire population free access to generative AI services, the first major state-led offering treating the technology akin to a public utility.
The program seeks to connect more South Koreans to homegrown AI chatbots with the goal of advancing the country’s push for AI sovereignty. By giving premium-level AI services free to its citizens, South Korean officials hope to avoid an overreliance on models from the U.S. and China.
The AI tools will be linked directly to government systems and allow South Koreans to book doctor’s appointments, receive help with apartment hunting or get tax advice. Small businesses will be able to tabulate their taxes and check their eligibility for government-support programs, and parents will receive suggested educational content for their children. ...
See the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/south-koreas-ai-for-all-push-gives-free-access-to-every-citizen-451f6b2c
‘I see the incredible promise’: on set of an AI film shoot as new studios embrace controversial tech
... But the excitement and energy about AI’s potential was palpable this week at Promise’s new base when a human actor, Tori Thomas, waited for her call amid rows of computers for early shooting on the studio’s newly announced AI-enabled horror film, Touch Grass, with a budget in the low millions of dollars.
The sound stage was little more than a corner of the office hung with white sheets. A small camera followed Thomas as she scrambled in a chase scene, then the AI did the rest. It superimposed her movement in real time on to a field of swaying grass generated by a Chinese AI model, Seedance 2.5, released this month, which looks set to dramatically slash production times.
Whole scenes – actor and backdrop – were instantly visible on the director’s handheld monitor, as if they were filming in real locations. Even the seedheads in the AI-generated meadow moved as Thomas appeared to brush past. In another take, the field was easily replaced by a nightmarish underground cavern. With a glance at the screen, Thomas could immediately see the backdrop she was acting with....
“When we went from optical to digital film, we thought we’d gone to heaven,” he told the Guardian. “It’s like that again. So many things are easy to do. I am an embracer of AI. Some people are wary of it, a little afraid of it, but I see the incredible promise.” ...
George Strompolos, a co-founder and the chief executive of Promise, estimated that hybrid AI films – human actors alongside AI technology – would prove 20% to 50% cheaper than conventional production. That could free film-makers from requiring major studio investment. ...
Joanna Popper, a producer and an adviser on AI to production companies, said the positive view on AI in film and TV was that it “empowers anybody with a talent and a discipline for storytelling to be able to go make what they want to make”. But she said: “The concern is … if five tech companies suck all of the financial gain out of the industry.” ...
Imagine, the 41-year-old studio run by Howard and Brian Grazer, now has an AI studio, Obsidian, operating from space in its Beverly Hills HQ. It has partnered with Obsidian to make The Code, an AI-enabled, Howard-directed animated feature based on drawings made in Vietnamese captivity by US prisoners of war. ...
But AI in Hollywood has drawn comparison to plastic surgery: everyone’s doing it but nobody wants to talk about it. “It’s 100% like that,” Reeb said. ...
Cardoza believes AI film-makers are attracting audiences because, ironically, their direct authorial voice has greater authenticity than in Hollywood where “they turn writing into algorithms”. ...
See the full story here: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/aug/16/directors-embracing-ai-film-making
The Scandinavian Solution to A.I. in Schools
... a study of over 26,000 Chinese students from grades 7-12 that was published in June by the Center for Economic Policy Research.
The economists David Strömberg, Victor Lei and Yanhui Wu found that while A.I. use raised homework scores among students, it lowered “monthly exam scores by 20 percent within six months. High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24 percent,” with student performance worsening over time. The students with the greatest negative effects on their exam scores appeared to be rushing through their homework by outsourcing to A.I. ...
Natalia Kucirkova, a professor of early childhood and development at the University of Stavanger in Norway, outlines a sensible methodology for greenlighting screen-based activities in her new book, “The Great EdTech Pivot.” Kucirkova thinks that every piece of ed tech should be measured by a model she calls the five E’s: efficacy, effectiveness, ethics, equity and environment.
In the United States, we tend to assess ed tech only on efficacy — asking whether it raises test scores or other learning benchmarks. ...
But as Kucirkova points out, even good studies (some of which take place in lab settings) cannot account for how teachers will interact with a product, or how students use it in real life. That’s what effectiveness measures: classroom uptake and utility. Ethics is whether a product has been designed to protect a child’s data privacy and whether it has appropriate security features. Equity is whether tools have been created for a diverse student population; environment is whether an ed tech company has sustainability in mind. ...
That is why teachers, children and early childhood experts should be part of the creation of educational technology, because they are its user base, and their goals are not about scaling a start-up. ...
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/opinion/ai-norway-schools.html
Bill Gates Warns A.I. Is More Dangerous Than Big Tech Will Admit
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“In private, people who understand how good this stuff is, and how much better it’s getting, they’re very worried,” he said. But few tech executives, Mr. Gates said, are willing to publicly admit that. “They’re now saying to each other: ‘Hey, man, don’t say that. It’s bad for us — the next trillion dollars we’re trying to raise.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Gates published a nearly 6,000-word essay on his personal website laying out his concerns about A.I. and offering solutions, such as new taxes and bans. He said he was motivated to speak now because recent improvements in A.I. had far surpassed his expectations and because the industry had ignored technology milestones — like A.I.’s escaping the control of its creators or making recipes for bioweapons — that it once said would warrant more caution.
“They’re just full speed ahead and hoping that the good outweighs the bad,” he said. ...
While Mr. Gates avoided criticizing Microsoft or other companies by name, he argued that he was uniquely positioned to work on the A.I. issue. He is a technologist and industry insider who is no longer driven by the profit incentives of running a company, and he has spent decades addressing inequality through his philanthropic foundation. ...
He said mass job losses, if not addressed, were inevitable because A.I. would spread across the economy and leave little room for one industry to absorb the refugees from another. ...
He proposed a new tax on A.I. use, known as a “token tax,” to make it more expensive to replace people and provide money to help those who do lose work. ...
Mr. Gates added that he was dumbfounded by the kind of voluntary measures that the White House and industry leaders were developing.
“Self-regulation on the most dangerous tool ever invented?” he said incredulously. “No, thanks!” ...
“I don’t like bringing bad news to people, and I don’t like saying that innovation may be a net negative,” he said. “But that’s where we are.”
See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/technology/bill-gates-ai-risks.html
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