New SUNY requirements to focus on civic skills and AI ethics; WHEC News10NBC, January 7, 2025

WHEC News10NBC; New SUNY requirements to focus on civic skills and AI ethics 

[Kip Currier: This is an intriguing development by the SUNY higher education system. It will be interesting to see how these efforts are assessed in future years (or even sooner, as I can imagine these general education requirements will likely catalyze spirited discussion about how to define -- and who gets to define -- "civic discourse", "healthy dialogues", and even "AI ethics").

Also, the end of the story notes that "AI assisted with the formatting of the story" and provides a link to learn more about how the news station uses AI. 

This is their policy, at present:

"News 10 NBC’S guidelines for using Artificial Intelligence

News10NBC uses artificial intelligence (A.I.) tools to help format some of our news stories from broadcast style to our digital print style. We do not use A.I. for research, content, reporting, or imaging. All news content that uses News10NBC’s A.I. resources is reviewed and approved in the News10NBC editorial process before publishing."

It's good practice, in terms of transparency and user awareness, that they do specify the current parameters of their use of AI.

A question to keep our eyes on:

• How might this policy potentially change as AI evolves? Or if/when economic circumstances change, which we know occurs. For example, if news organizations like this one decide to potentially downsize, at some point, and have to do more reporting with fewer human reporters and news staff.]

News story:

"The State University of New York (SUNY) system is set to introduce new general education requirements for its students.

These updates will add a civic discourse component to the core competencies of the general education curriculum. 

According to SUNY, this new requirement aims to ensure that “students gain the skills necessary to participate in civic life and engage in healthy dialogues in order to secure the future of our democracy.”

“SUNY is committed to academic excellence, which includes a robust general education curriculum,” said SUNY Chancellor King. “We are proud that every SUNY student will be expected to demonstrate the knowledge and skills that advance respectful and reasoned discourse, and that we will help our students recognize and ethically use AI as they consider various information sources.”

Additionally, students will be required to learn how to recognize and ethically use artificial intelligence. The new requirements are expected to start in fall 2026."

The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley; The New York Times, August 2, 2018

Kara Swisher, The New York Times;

The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley

"All these companies began with a gauzy credo to change the world. But they have done that in ways they did not imagine — by weaponizing pretty much everything that could be weaponized. They have mutated human communication, so that connecting people has too often become about pitting them against one another, and turbocharged that discord to an unprecedented and damaging volume.

They have weaponized social media. They have weaponized the First Amendment. They have weaponized civic discourse. And they have weaponized, most of all, politics...

Because what he never managed to grok then was that the company he created was destined to become a template for all of humanity, the digital reflection of masses of people across the globe. Including — and especially — the bad ones.

Was it because he was a computer major who left college early and did not attend enough humanities courses that might have alerted him to the uglier aspects of human nature? Maybe."