AI task force proposes ‘artificial intelligence, ethics and society’ minor in BCLA; The Los Angeles Loyolan, November 18, 2024

Coleman Standifer, asst. managing editor; Grace McNeill, asst. managing editor , The Los Angeles Loyolan; AI task force proposes ‘artificial intelligence, ethics and society’ minor in BCLA

"The Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts (BCLA) is taking steps to further educate students on artificial intelligence (AI) through the development of an “artificial intelligence, ethics and society," spearheaded by an AI task force. This proposed addition comes two years after the widespread adoption of OpenAI's ChatGPT in classrooms.

Prior to stepping into his role as the new dean of BCLA, Richard Fox, Ph.D., surveyed BCLA’s 175 faculty about how the college could best support their teaching. Among the top three responses from faculty were concerns about navigating AI in the classroom, Fox told the Loyolan.

As of now, BCLA has no college-wide policy on AI usage and allows instructors determine how AI is — or is not — utilized in the classroom.

“We usually don't dictate how people teach. That is the essence of academic freedom," said Fox. “What I want to make sure we're doing is we're preparing students to enter a world where they have these myriad different expectations on writing from their faculty members.”

Headed by Roberto Dell’Oro, Ph.D., professor of theological studies and director of the Bioethics Institute, the task force met over the summer and culminated in a proposal for a minor in BCLA. The proposal — which Dell'Oro sent to the Loyolan— was delivered to Fox in August and now awaits a formal proposal to be drawn up before approval, according to Dell’Oro.

The minor must then be approved by the Academic Planning and Review Committee (ARPC), a committee tasked with advising Provost Thomas Poon, Ph.D., on evaluating proposals for new programs.

According to the proposal, the proposed minor aims “to raise awareness about the implications of AI technologies, emphasize the importance of ethical considerations in its development and promote interdisciplinary research at the intersection of AI, ethics, and society.

The minor — if approved by the APRC — would have “four or five classes,” with the possibility of having an introductory course taught by faculty in the Seaver College of Science and Engineering, according to the proposal.

Most of the sample courses in the proposal include classes rooted in philosophy and ethics, such as, “AI, Robots, and the Philosophy of the Person,” “Could Robots Have Rights?” and “Introduction to Bioethics.” According to Dell’Oro, the hope is to have courses available for enrollment by Fall 2025."

York County Libraries halt new purchases of books with sexual content for 17 and under; WCNC, October 15, 2024

Julie Kay , WCNC; York County Libraries halt new purchases of books with sexual content for 17 and under

"York County Library Board of Trustees has decided to halt purchasing any books for minors that include any sexual content. 

The decision, made in a heated special meeting Wednesday night, is a change from their original statement. 

Board Chair Anne Witte previously posted that they would halt purchasing all books for children, until "further clarification and guidance is received from the state regarding Proviso 27.1 and until the Attorney General makes a ruling providing libraries with guidance for collection development.""

The Limitation Effect: A White Paper; October 2024

New York University and University of California - San Diego, The Limitation Effect: A White Paper

Experiences of State Policy-Driven Education Restriction in Florida's Public Schools

"How can a teacher discuss Jim Crow laws without breaking state law? Should a librarian stop ordering books with LGBTQ+ characters? A new white paper by UC San Diego and NYU researchers reveals the experiences of K-12 educators and parents in Florida grappling with state policies and policy effects restricting access to instruction, books, courses, clubs, professional development, and basic student supports."

I Quit Teaching Because of ChatGPT; Time, September 30, 2024

 Victoria Livingstone, Time; I Quit Teaching Because of ChatGPT

"Students who outsource their writing to AI lose an opportunity to think more deeply about their research. In a recent article on art and generative AI, author Ted Chiang put it this way: “Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.” Chiang also notes that the hundreds of small choices we make as writers are just as important as the initial conception. Chiang is a writer of fiction, but the logic applies equally to scholarly writing. Decisions regarding syntax, vocabulary, and other elements of style imbue a text with meaning nearly as much as the underlying research...

Generative AI is, in some ways, a democratizing tool...

The best educators will adapt to AI. In some ways, the changes will be positive. Teachers must move away from mechanical activities or assigning simple summaries. They will find ways to encourage students to think critically and learn that writing is a way of generating ideas, revealing contradictions, and clarifying methodologies.

However, those lessons require that students be willing to sit with the temporary discomfort of not knowing. Students must learn to move forward with faith in their own cognitive abilities as they write and revise their way into clarity. With few exceptions, my students were not willing to enter those uncomfortable spaces or remain there long enough to discover the revelatory power of writing."

Internet Archive Court Loss Leaves Higher Ed in Gray Area; Inside Higher Ed, September 9, 2024

  Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed; Internet Archive Court Loss Leaves Higher Ed in Gray Area

"Pandemic-era library programs that helped students access books online could be potentially threatened by an appeals court ruling last week. 

Libraries across the country, from Carnegie Mellon University to the University of California system, turned to what’s known as a digital or controlled lending program in 2020, which gave students a way to borrow books that weren’t otherwise available. Those programs are small in scale and largely experimental but part of a broader shift in modernizing the university library.

But the appeals court ruling could upend those programs...

Still, librarians at colleges and elsewhere, along with other experts, feared that the long-running legal fight between the Internet Archive and leading publishers could imperil the ability of libraries to own and preserve books, among other ramifications."

Lifeline or distraction? Georgia shooting reignites debate over cellphones in schools; NBC News, September 7, 2024

 Elizabeth Chuck, NBC News; Lifeline or distraction? Georgia shooting reignites debate over cellphones in schools

"There is clear research showing the detriments of smartphones, particularly to adolescents. The phones and their addictive social media platforms have been tied to poor sleep, cyberbullying and unhealthy body esteem in young people. A 2023 study by technology and media research group Common Sense Media found that adolescents are overwhelmed with notifications from their smartphones — receiving a median of 237 alerts daily, with about a quarter arriving during the school day.

At least 13 states have passed laws or put policies in place that ban or restrict students’ use of cellphones in schools statewide, or recommend that local districts enact their own restrictions, according to Education Week. Individual school districts, both large and small, have also implemented policies that limit or prohibit cellphone use, with a growing number relying on magnetically sealed pouches to lock up the devices so students aren’t tempted to check them when they should be learning.

Being able to get in touch if there’s an emergency is the top reason parents say they want their children to have access to phones at school, according to a National Parents Union survey conducted in February of more than 1,500 parents of K-12 public school students.

Yet fatal shootings in schools are exceedingly rare. And while parents may want to reach their children should there be shots fired or another emergency, phones “can actually detract from the safety of students,” according to Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm that focuses on school security and emergency preparedness training."

Only the First Amendment Can Protect Students, Campuses and Speech; The New York Times, September 6, 2024

Cass R. Sunstein , The New York Times; Only the First Amendment Can Protect Students, Campuses and Speech

"To answer those questions, we should turn to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that Congress “shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” Those words provide the right foundation for forging a new consensus about the scope and importance of free speech in higher education.

As a rallying cry, that consensus should endorse the greatest sentence ever written by a Supreme Court justice. In 1943, Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote, “Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”

It is true that private colleges and universities, unlike public ones, are not subject to the First Amendment, which applies only to public officials and institutions. If Harvard, Stanford, Baylor, Vanderbilt, Pomona or Colby wants to restrict speech, the First Amendment does not stand in their way.

Still, most institutions of higher learning, large or small, would do well to commit themselves to following the First Amendment of their own accord.

First Amendment doctrine, developed over the centuries, provides excellent guidance."

Major publishers sue Florida over ‘unconstitutional’ school book ban; The Guardian, August 30, 2024

Richard Luscombe  , The Guardian; Major publishers sue Florida over ‘unconstitutional’ school book ban

"Six major book publishers have teamed up to sue the US state of Florida over an “unconstitutional” law that has seen hundreds of titles purged from school libraries following rightwing challenges.

The landmark action targets the “sweeping book removal provisions” of House Bill 1069, which required school districts to set up a mechanism for parents to object to anything they considered pornographic or inappropriate.

A central plank of Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s war on “woke” on Florida campuses, the law has been abused by rightwing activists who quickly realized that any book they challenged had to be immediately removed and replaced only after the exhaustion of a lengthy and cumbersome review process, if at all, the publishers say.

Since it went into effect last July, countless titles have been removed from elementary, middle and high school libraries, including American classics such as Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Contemporary novels by bestselling authors such as Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume and Stephen King have also been removed, as well as The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank’s gripping account of the Holocaust, according to the publishers."

Dave Eggers’ Novel Was Banned From South Dakota Schools. In a New Documentary, the Community Fights Back (Exclusive); People, August 10, 204

Carly Tagen-Dye

Carly Tagen-Dye

Carly Tagen-Dye is the Books editorial assistant at PEOPLE, where she writes for both print and digital platforms.

PEOPLE EDITORIAL GUIDELINES

, People; Dave Eggers’ Novel Was Banned From South Dakota Schools. In a New Documentary, the Community Fights Back (Exclusive)

"Bestselling author Dave Eggers wasn’t expecting to learn that his 2013 dystopian novel, The Circle, was removed from high schools in Rapid City, S.D. What's more, Eggers' book, along with four others, was designated “to be destroyed” by the school board as well.

“It was new to me, although the other authors that were banned have had the books banned again and again,” Eggers tells PEOPLE.

The decision to ban The Circle, as well as The Perks of Being a Wallflowerby Stephen Chbosky, How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue, Fun Homeby Alison Bechdel and Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, is the subject of the documentary To Be Destroyed, premiering on MSNBC on Aug. 11 as part of Trevor Noah's "The Turning Point" series. Directed by Arthur Bradford, the film follows Eggers during his travels to Rapid City, where he met with the teachers and students on the frontlines of the book banning fight."

Disconnected: 23 Million Americans Affected by the Shutdown of the Affordable Connectivity Program; CNet, July 28, 2024

Joe Supan, CNet ; Disconnected: 23 Million Americans Affected by the Shutdown of the Affordable Connectivity Program

"Jackson got her first home internet connection through the Affordable Connectivity Program, a pandemic-era fund that provided $30 to $75 a month to help low-income households pay for internet. In May, the $14.2 billion program officially ran out of money, leaving Jackson and 23 million households like hers with internet bills that were $30 to $75 higher than the month before. 

That's if they decided to hang on to their internet service at all: 13% of ACP subscribers, or roughly 3 million households, said that after the program ended they planned to cancel service, according to a Benton Institute survey conducted as the ACP expired. 

For as long as the internet has existed, there's been a gap between those who have access to it -- and the means to afford it -- and those who don't. The vast majority of federal broadband spending over the past two decades has gone toward expanding internet access to rural areas. Case in point: In 2021, Congress dedicated $90 billion to closing the digital divide, but only $14.2 billion went to making the internet more affordable through the ACP; the rest went to broadband infrastructure...

"The biggest barrier to home broadband is cost. There are more people who don't have access to home internet because of cost than there are people who don't have access because the infrastructure doesn't exist."

Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance"

Students Weigh Ethics of Using AI for College Applications; Education Week via GovTech, July 24, 2024

Alyson Klein , Education Week via GovTech; Students Weigh Ethics of Using AI for College Applications

"About a third of high school seniors who applied to college in the 2023-24 school year acknowledged using an AI tool for help in writing admissions essays, according to research released this month by foundry10, an organization focused on improving learning.

About half of those students — or roughly one in six students overall — used AI the way Makena did, to brainstorm essay topics or polish their spelling and grammar. And about 6 percent of students overall—including some of Makena's classmates, she said — relied on AI to write the final drafts of their essays instead of doing most of the writing themselves.

Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of students admitted to Harvard University's class of 2027 paid a private admissions consultant for help with their applications.

The use of outside help, in other words, is rampant in college admissions, opening up a host of questions about ethics, norms, and equal opportunity.

Top among them: Which — if any — of these students cheated in the admissions process?

For now, the answer is murky."

After abuse revelations, professors grapple with how to teach Munro; The Washington Post, July 12, 2024

 Amanda Coletta, The Washington Post; After abuse revelations, professors grapple with how to teach Munro

"Professors are wrestling with how to teach Munro’s work. Bookstores are debating whether to feature it on their shelves. And Canadians are grappling with the age-old question: Is it possible to divorce the art from the artist?"

Can I Use A.I. to Grade My Students’ Papers?; The New York Times, May 24, 2024

Kwame Anthony Appiah, The New York Times; Can I Use A.I. to Grade My Students’ Papers?

"Can I Use A.I. to Grade My Students’ Papers?

I am a junior-high-school English teacher. In the past school year, there has been a significant increase in students’ cheating on writing assignments by using artificial intelligence. Our department feels that 13-year-old students will only become better writers if they practice and learn from the successes and challenges that come with that.

Recently our department tasked students with writing an argumentative essay, an assignment we supported by breaking down the process into multiple steps. The exercise took several days of class time and homework to complete. All of our students signed a contract agreeing not to use A.I. assistance, and parents promised to support the agreement by monitoring their children when they worked at home. Yet many students still used A.I.

Some of our staff members uploaded their grading rubric into an A.I.-assisted platform, and students uploaded their essays for assessment. The program admittedly has some strengths. Most notable, it gives students writing feedback and the opportunity to edit their work before final submission. The papers are graded within minutes, and the teachers are able to transfer the A.I. grade into their roll book.

I find this to be hypocritical. I spend many hours grading my students’ essays. It’s tedious work, but I feel that it’s my responsibility — if a student makes an effort to complete the task, they should have my undivided attention during the assessment process.

Here’s where I struggle: Should I embrace new technology and use A.I.-assisted grading to save time and my sanity even though I forbid my students from using it? Is it unethical for teachers to ask students not to use A.I. to assist their writing but then allow an A.I. platform to grade their work? — Name Withheld" 

Making sure it’s Correkt: a group of UCSB students set out to revolutionize the ethics of AI chatbots; The Daily Nexus, University of California, Santa Barbara, May 16, 2024

Na Huang, The Daily Nexus, University of California, Santa Barbara; Making sure it’s Correkt: a group of UCSB students set out to revolutionize the ethics of AI chatbots 

"When second-year computer science major Alexzendor Misra first came to UC Santa Barbara in Fall Quarter 2022, he had no idea an ill-fated encounter with a conspiracy-believing peer would inspire the creation of an artificial intelligence search engine, Correkt. 

Merely two months into college, Misra began a project that he hopes can truly change the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. 

Now, Misra and his team, consisting of first-year statistics and data science major Andre Braga, first-year computer science major Ryan Hung, first-year statistics and data science major Chan Park, first-year computer engineering major Khilan Surapaneni and second-year computer science majors Noah Wang and Ramon Wang, are ready to showcase the outcome of their project. They are preparing themselves to present their product, Correkt, an AI search engine, to the UCSB community at the AI Community of Practice (CoP) Spring Symposium on May 20. 

Correkt is not so different from ChatGPT — in fact, what ChatGPT does, Correkt can do too. Yet, Correkt aims to solve one critical issue with ChatGPT: misinformation. 

It is known that ChatGPT is prone to “hallucinations,” and according to IBM, it refers to the generation of false information due to the AI software’s misinterpretation of patterns or objects. Correkt is designed to prevent these instances of misinformation dissemination in two ways. 

Correkt is linked solely to reputable data sources — newspapers, textbooks and peer-reviewed journals. The AI model currently draws its information from an expansive data bank of over 180 million well-established, trustworthy resources — a number set to grow with time. This greatly lowers the risk of receiving inaccurate information by eliminating unreliable sources. However, it still does not give users the freedom to verify the information they access.

This is where Correkt truly sets itself apart from pre-existing AI chatbots: it includes a built-in citation function that details the precise location where every piece of information it presents to the user was retrieved. Essentially, Correkt is a hybrid between a search engine and an AI chatbot. The citation function allows users to judge for themselves the accuracy and validity of the information they receive as they would when conducting research through a search engine. The difference would be that the results will be much more streamlined with the support of AI. 

“[Correkt] has so much more value as a way to find information, like a new generation of [a] search engine,” Misra comments enthusiastically."

Florida settles lawsuit after challenge to ‘don’t say gay’ law; Associated Press via The Guardian, March 11, 2024

Associated Press via The Guardian ; Florida settles lawsuit after challenge to ‘don’t say gay’ law

"Under the terms of the settlement, the Florida board of education will send instructions to every school district saying the Florida law does not prohibit discussing LGBTQ+ people, nor prevent anti-bullying rules on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or disallow Gay-Straight Alliance groups. The settlement also spells out that the law is neutral – meaning what applies to LGBTQ+ people also applies to heterosexual people – and that it doesn’t apply to library books not being used for instruction in the classroom.

The law also doesn’t apply to books with incidental references to LGBTQ+ characters or same-sex couples, “as they are not instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity any more than a math problem asking students to add bushels of apples is instruction on apple farming”, according to the settlement.

“What this settlement does, is, it re-establishes the fundamental principal, that I hope all Americans agree with, which is every kid in this country is entitled to an education at a public school where they feel safe, their dignity is respected and where their families and parents are welcomed,” Roberta Kaplan, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an interview."

The librarian who couldn’t take it anymore; The Washington Post, November 11, 2023

Ruby Cramer, The Washington Post; The librarian who couldn’t take it anymore

"When she had decided to become a librarian almost 10 years ago, it was for a simple reason: She loved to read. Now she watched as the work she did at a high school in Central Florida became part of a national debate. There were fights going on over democracy and fascism. There were parents and school board members arguing on social media and in meetings. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) wasn’t just passing laws but using them to run for president. To Tania, the pure act of reading was becoming more and more political, and as a result, she had to spend much of her time reviewing the books on her shelves — not to suggest one to a student but to ask herself whether the content was too mature for the teenagers at her school. Then she had moved on to the books in each teacher’s classroom, because as of this year, the state considered those books to be part of the library, too.

All of this took time. The librarian’s job was expanding even as she felt it was shrinking to a series of rote tasks: She would copy a book’s ISBN number into a peer-review database. She would decide whether to mark it with the thumb-size red sticker, provided to her by the district, that read “M” for “mature.” If a book wasn’t listed in a database, she would review it by hand, and then she would start again with the next book. In those hours, the job became a series of keystrokes, and she began to feel more like a censor than a librarian...

Somewhere else in the school, interviews were going on for her replacement. Three candidates were coming in. The principal had asked Tania to send him interview questions. She emailed her district supervisor for ideas and received a document in her inbox, the list of questions they kept on file.

“What do you see as the role of the librarian in the school setting?”

“What kind of library attracts students, staff and parents?"

Nothing about the laws, nothing about reviewing books, nothing about book bans at all. Tania scrolled through the questions and added one more. “What is your stance on Censorship?” she wrote, though she had no way of knowing whether it would be asked, or how the next librarian might answer."

Beaufort, South Carolina, schools return most books to shelves after attempt to ban 97; CBS News, March 3, 2024

Scott Pelley, CBS; Beaufort, South Carolina, schools return most books to shelves after attempt to ban 97

"Ruth-Naomi James: I'm a combat veteran, right? There's no way I went to Iraq thinking that when I moved back home, I would have to do this to make sure that the freedom that we fight for in this country is taken out of the hands of students and parents.

The final votes came this past December. Five books were judged too graphic in sex or violence. But 92 returned to the schools. Dick Geier says this lesson reaches beyond the classroom.

Dick Geier: Diversity brings tolerance. The more you understand what other people think and realize that what they say is important, but who they are, what their story, what their background is. The more you know that, the more you see the power of diversity. And then, be kind, and be understanding. And don't make judgments because you haven't lived their story. They have.

In the city that's lived a story of letters and learning, one book that was banned and restored was "The Fixer," a novel of antisemitism that won the Pulitzer prize. In its pages, the book's hero expresses this opinion, "There are no wrong books." "What's wrong is the fear of them."

A new documentary shows the impact of book bans in Florida public schools on the kids; NPR, November 25, 2023

Scott Simon, NPR; A new documentary shows the impact of book bans in Florida public schools on the kids

"In her directorial debut, Sheila Nevins' chronicles the impact of book bans in Florida public schools. She tells NPR's Scott Simon what inspired her to profile those most affected — the students...

GRACE LINN: My husband, Robert Nichol (ph), was killed in action in World War II, defending our democracy, constitution and freedoms. One of the freedoms that the Nazis crushed was the freedom to read the books that they banned.

NEVINS: And I thought, holy [expletive], this woman is out there doing something, and I'm doing nothing. And I know I'm only in my 80s, for heaven's sake. And here's this woman fighting for young people to be able to read the books that she read and I read and possibly you read, Scott, that in many ways change our lives and make us know about the world we live in. And I thought, I've got to grab her. I've got to get her. And I've got to get some of these kids who've lost the books or who have been deprived of the books to read them and to see how they feel about what they're missing.

SIMON: Some of the books that are mentioned in the course of the film that have been banned include "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Maus," "The Kite Runner," "The Life Of Rosa Parks," "The Handmaid's Tale." I can't come up with a better question than why?

NEVINS: Interesting, isn't it? Why would you deprive children of this information? If you want them to grow up to be like yourself, and yourself has a limited worldview - or at least the worldview that you believe is the worldview they should have - then you take out anything that you would find as questionable - Planned Parenthood, race, religious problems, difficulties. You know, you would simply want to make your child not aware of all these things that make the world a sort of wondrous, difficult, complex and often painful world that we all live in. I'm sort of quoting the kids, which is really odd. How can you deprive me - I'm 12 or 14 or 15 - of information?"

From ethics to outsmarting Chat GPT, state unveils resource for AI in Ohio education; Cleveland.com, February 15, 2024

Laura Hancock, cleveland.com ; From ethics to outsmarting Chat GPT, state unveils resource for AI in Ohio education

"The state released a guide Thursday to help schools and parents navigate generative artificial intelligence in an ethical manner.

“When you use the term AI, I know in some people’s minds, it can sound scary,” said Lt. Jon Husted, whose InnovateOhio office worked with private sector organizations to develop the guide...

Every technology that’s come into society has been like that.”...

But AI is the wave of the future, and Husted said it’s important that students are exposed to it.

The AI toolkit is not mandatory but can be used as a resource for educators and families.

It doesn’t include many prescriptive actions for how to begin teaching and using AI. Rather, it contains sections for parents, teachers and school districts where they can find dozens of sample lessons and discussions about ethics, how to develop policies to keep students safe, and other topics.

For instance, teachers can find a template letter that they can send to school district officials to communicate how they’re using AI...

“Before you use AI in the classroom you will need a plan for a student with privacy, data security, ethics and many other things,” Husted said. “More is needed than just a fun tool in the classroom.”"

In Missouri, years of efforts to ban books take a toll on school librarians: 'It's too painful'; St. Louis Public Radio , NPR, December 26, 2023

St. Louis Public Radio , NPR; In Missouri, years of efforts to ban books take a toll on school librarians: 'It's too painful'

"Maestas decided to speak out at a recent school board meeting for the first time against the proposed revisions. She is especially worried about the removal of diversity requirements.

“We have to have diversity in our libraries,” Maestas said. “We have to. All people have the right to be recognized or appreciated, to see themselves in the collection. And students have the right and the privilege of being able to step into the shoes of someone unlike themselves, to experience their life through 300 pages.”

The school board has indefinitely tabled the policy change.

Looking back at the past two years, Maestas doesn’t know what is behind the focus on libraries, but she thinks it is part of a broader attack on truth, public education and even democracy.

“Libraries are at the heart of our democracy,” Maestas said. “People have those First Amendment rights to learn what they want to learn, to hear what they want to hear, to say what they want to say. When you can attack those First Amendment rights and you can remove the sources of valid information and valid education from everyone, then you have the power.”"