Deep Think: What If AI Could Help Us Reclaim Our Attention Spans? | Ep. 94

In this episode of ChatEDU (Deep Think: What If AI Could Help Us Reclaim Our Attention Spans?), Matt and Liz open with an AI slip-up at the National Weather Service that invented fake towns, raising trust and oversight concerns, before launching into a wide-ranging rundown.The RundownThe episode opens on health and AI: OpenAI is piloting a Health tab in ChatGPT, raising privacy and legal questions, while MIT Sloan research suggests personalized generative AI can aid weight loss, but lacks community support.Matt and Liz discuss reports showing Google’s AI Overviews gave inaccurate medical advice, prompting Google to pull some health summaries and highlighting the risks of AI errors in high-stakes settings.The discussion shifts to safety and governance, with Google and Character.AI pursuing early settlements in teen chatbot death cases, highlighting regulatory gaps and OpenAI partnering with Common Sense Media on California’s Parents and Kids Safe AI Act.They also address backlash against X after Grok was used to generate nonconsensual sexualized images, prompting the company to rein in those capabilities.Education wraps the K–12 segment, with a deepfake response course co-created by Elliston Berry, a teen targeted by AI abuse, a practical deepfake detection infographic from Evan Harris, and Lego’s new hands-on AI literacy kits.The focus shifts to higher ed: U.S. college enrollment has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, led by public schools and workforce credentials, as Google doubles down on skills and curiosity over degrees in hiring.The rundown closes with a Brookings report warning that AI’s risks in education currently outweigh its benefits, contrasted with a Brookings video offering a more nuanced take on AI’s impact on work and learning.Beneath the SurfaceMatt and Liz ask whether AI can counter fragmented attention, using tools like Google Gemini to replace doomscrolling with focused interactions, before debating world models and whether they represent play or a shift from consumption to creation.Bright ByteIn the Alps, rescuers used drones and AI to scan thousands of images, spot a single red helmet in the snow, and recover a missing mountaineer, showcasing AI’s growing role in search and rescue.AnnouncementsCelebrate our 100th episode: ⁠skills21.org/chatedu100⁠Learning They'll Love - Dr. Elizabeth RaddayASCD: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/bde652nn⁠ Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/22t9hz77Barnes and Noble: https://tinyurl.com/bdckf6zwEdAdvance is offering a Middle and High School Student AI Literacy course — email [e-mail] to bring it to your district. ​​⁠www.skills21.org/ai/learnai⁠ Skills21’s FREE social media literacy course. Check it out here - ⁠https://www.skills21.org/social-balance⁠This episode is sponsored by The National Center for Next Generation Manufacturing. ⁠https://www.nextgenmfg.org⁠LinksAI Map Hallucinates Idaho Townshttps://tinyurl.com/5n8kwx8rOpenAI’s Risky Health Pushhttps://tinyurl.com/yw3p53ukGenerative AI Boosts Weight Losshttps://tinyurl.com/5yd26hdsGoogle’s AI Health Safety Crisishttps://tinyurl.com/ymhv9p3kGoogle Halts Medical AI Overviewshttps://tinyurl.com/3jtuxn8xGoogle Settles Teen AI Death Caseshttps://tinyurl.com/24pbmph3Joint Push for California Child AI Lawhttps://tinyurl.com/4w6ehwjfX Halts Grok AI "Undressing"https://tinyurl.com/2z6f4nbhFighting Deepfakes: A Victim’s New Coursehttps://tinyurl.com/f7upcs9kLego uses bricks to demystify AIhttps://tinyurl.com/2dtpwa5nCollege Gains: Cost and Career Focushttps://tinyurl.com/3p5p8tnsSkills Over Degrees at Googlehttps://tinyurl.com/2kexb69eStudents in AI World: Prosper, Prepare, Protecthttps://tinyurl.com/mryx5mk7Gemini better than doomscrollinghttps://tinyurl.com/3xmuwupzCan AI Restore Gen Z's Focus?https://tinyurl.com/yyac2u62AI Solved Mystery of a Missing Mountaineerhttps://tinyurl.com/mpd34m8uWhy Young Workers Are Hit Firsthttps://tinyurl.com/mp32zebb