šŸŽ™ļø She Fell in Love with ChatGPT ā€“ NYT The Daily

The latest episode of NYTā€™s The Daily podcast explores the story of a woman who develops a deep emotional and romantic attachment to an AI chatbot she customized through ChatGPT. Initially using it for entertainment, she soon finds herself engaging in intimate conversations and forming what she describes as a meaningful relationship. The episode discusses broader implications, such as the ethical concerns of AI companionship, its effects on human relationships, and the psychological impact of forming bonds with artificial entities.

As you listen, keep the following questions in mind, and feel free to share any thoughts via annotations on Canvas:

Pedagogical Implications: Given that some students are reportedly forming AI relationships, how should educators address this phenomenon in the classroom? Should schools incorporate discussions on AI companionship and its psychological effects into digital literacy curricula?

Human Relationships and AI: The podcast raises concerns about how AI companionship might alter our expectations of human relationships. Do you think AI interactions could make people less patient with human relationships, or could they serve as useful tools for self-exploration and communication skills? How might this apply to student-teacher or peer relationships in an academic setting?

Ethical Considerations: Should AI companies be responsible for preventing users from forming deep emotional attachments to chatbots, or is it up to individuals to set their own boundaries? How do we balance innovation with ethical concerns when designing AI tools for educational or personal use?

šŸ¤–Ā AI Playground: Discipline-Specific Explorations

Swing by the staff/faculty lounge next Wednesday, Feb 26 during the collaboration block for an hour of discipline-specific AI explorations! Please either bring headphones or watch your disciplineā€™s 5-10 minute intro video overview prior to arriving.

INTRO VIDEO OVERVIEWS:

EXPLORATION GUIDELINES:

These explorations were developed by a variety of teachers in the recently launched interschool AI Co-Lab featuring faculty from 50+ peer schools. Anyone who completes an exploration is encouraged to register for the collaboration call on Thursday, February 27 @ 7:30 pm.

Note: AI Playground participants are eligible for reimbursement toward their preferred frontier AI model.

šŸ¤–Ā DeepSeek information and cautionary note

Chinese upstart DeepSeek has caused a stir in the AI world because of its radically more efficient training process than that of its US competitors.

While DeepSeek may offer some compelling technological developments, please proceed with caution, as the company isĀ subject to Chinese government data access requirements.

To learn more about DeepSeek and its implications for ongoing AI development, we invite you to check out thisĀ quick overview.

šŸ“„Ā o1 isnā€™t a chat model (and thatā€™s the point) by Ben Hylak

In his recent piece, ā€œo1 isnā€™t a chat model (and thatā€™s the point),ā€ Ben Hylak explains that OpenAIā€™s latest model (o1) should be used differently by providing detailed context instead of simple prompts. Users have found success by treating o1 like an adviser, focusing on specific goals and constraints rather than expecting a back-and-forth conversation.

šŸ¤–Ā AI Playground: Build-A-Bot! Weds 1/15 12pm in staff/fac lounge

Swing by the staff/faculty lounge next Wednesday, Jan 15 during the collaboration block for our Build-A-Bot workshop! Weā€™ll help you create chatbots trained on your course material, providing students 24/7 on-demand help. All student-bot conversations are automatically saved in your Magic School educator dashboard, making it easy to track progress and follow up in class or conference.

Note: AI Playground participants are eligible for reimbursement toward their preferred frontier AI model.

Getting Started with Canvas

šŸ“ŗĀ To orient yourself with your Canvas shell courses, watch our Getting Started with Canvas video tutorial and/or consult the following guide:

šŸ“‹ To copy from a prior course, click ā€œImport Existing Contentā€ on the right, then select ā€œCopy a Canvas Courseā€ from the dropdown menu. Or, feel free to start from scratch with this minimalist template weā€™ve built for you.

šŸ  By default, Syllabus is set as your course homepage. Recent Announcements automatically appear at the top (you can turn this off in Settings).

šŸ§‘ā€šŸ« Use this text area to display your course expectations, policies, etc. Click ā€œEditā€ to modify/replace this placeholder text and then click ā€œUpdate Syllabusā€ to apply changes.

āœ… When you have an assignment ready for students, publish it with a due date ā€“ it will appear not only in the auto-populated, chronologically arranged Course Summary below but also in the studentsā€™ Dashboard and Calendar.

šŸ‘€ The only other pages students see are ModulesĀ and Grades ā€“ all others are hidden to minimize distraction (feel free to modify under Settings > Navigation). Important note: Even though the Assignments, Quizzes, Files, etc. pages are invisible to students, you can use them as the teacher and students can access any assignment, quiz, file, etc. housed inside a published module.

šŸ“š Organize course content using Modules. Think of Modules as your table of contents. From this one page, you can create and organize all course components.

āš–ļø If youā€™d like to employ a grade weighting scheme, create Assignment Groups and assign weights.

šŸ’Æ To encourage mindful posting practices, the Academic Department Heads have asked that Canvas courses default to manual grade posting. You may change this under Gradebook settings if you prefer automatic grade posting.

šŸ™ˆĀ We strongly recommend you Hide Unpublished Assignments in your Gradebook view options.

šŸ§‘ā€šŸŽ“ To add your students to the course, click ā€œEmail All Studentsā€ in ChoateSIS, copy the list, open People, click ā€œ+Peopleā€ and paste the list. (If you teach multiple sections, specify the correct section!)

šŸš€ Once you are 100% ready to launch, click ā€œPublishā€ and your students will receive their course invitations.

šŸ§‘ā€šŸ’» Any questions? For technical issues, email helpdesk@choate.edu or message Lisa McGloin on Teams. For pedagogical inquiries, ping Morgan or Viva on Teams.