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Columbia & Yale protests: What campus protesters want
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Why hasn't the United Nations insisted on military observers in Gaza?
Well, the United Nations doesn't really insist on things. And when they do, it's usually symbolic. Like they insist that humanitarian aid needs to get into Gaza and it doesn't happen. Or they insist that, there needs to be protections for the Palestinian civilians or that the Hamas needs to let go, release all of the illegally held hostages, and it doesn't go anywhere. So you can insist all you want. Also, keep in mind the Security Council would be vetoing that sort of thing because the US has a veto and they continue to use it on most Israel-Palestine related resolutions.
What specific demands are being voiced by campus protesters at institutions such as Columbia and Yale?
Well, I mean, the demands that got these protests started, are all about divestment of the endowments of these universities away from any corporations that do business in make money with Israel. Because of the view that the Israeli war in Gaza is wrong, the student protesters called it a genocide and that they want to end that. We've seen that kind of demand in Europe across the board. Not as much in the United States, at least not to this degree. Having said that, now that you also have students that have been suspended and arrested, surely the campus protesters are also saying those things need to be unwound. We're also increasingly seeing demands for university administrators, including presidents, to resign. So, I mean, the longer this goes, the harder it is to actually, accede to these student demands. And of course, the more polarized the environment on the ground in these universities become.
How will US aid package approval shake the dynamic of the Russia-Ukraine war?
Well, it makes it more likely that the Ukrainians can defend their front lines, at least for now. They had been losing some territory. Not a lot, but including one city. And the Russians are planning, with an additional mobilization, a new major offensive, probably end of spring, early summer. Ukrainians have a much better capability to hit back and stop the Russians from making gains there. They had been down to about 20% of the ammunition and artillery being fired against Russia, that the Russians were firing against Ukraine. This brings that back to parity through that offensive. What does this mean for 2025? Still, massive uncertainty and eventually a need to engage in negotiations with a much bigger Russia fighting an illegal war, an invasion with all these war crimes. Is that fair? No. But is that reality? Yes, absolutely. And any NATO leader you talk to privately recognizes that's where this is eventually going.
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ChatGPT on campus: How are universities handling generative AI?
In this episode of GZERO AI, Taylor Owen, professor at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University and director of its Centre for Media, Technology & Democracy, discusses how the emergence of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools have thrown a new dynamic into his teaching practice, and shares his insights into how colleges have attempted to handle the new phenomenon.
What does education look like in a world with generative AI?
The bottom line here is that we, students, universities, faculty, are simply in unchartered waters. I start teaching my digital policy class for the first time since the emergence of generative AI. I'm really unsure about how I should be handling this, but here are a few observations.
First, universities are all over the place on what to do. Policies range from outright bans, to updated citation requirements, to broad and largely unhelpful directives, to simply no policies at all. It's fair to say that a consensus has yet to emerge.
The second challenge is that AI detection software, like the plagiarism software we've used before it, are massively problematic. While there are some tools out there, they all suffer from several, in my view, disqualifying flaws. These tools have a tendency to generate false-positives, and this really matters when we're talking about academic integrity and ultimately plagiarism. What's more, research shows us that the use of these tools leads to an arms race between faculty trying to catch students and students trying to deceive. The other problem though, ironically, is that these tools may be infringing on students' copyright. When student essays are uploaded into these detection software, their writing is then stored and used for future detection. We've seen this same story with earlier generation plagiarism tools, and I personally want nothing to do with it.
Third, I think banning is not only impossible, but pedagogically irresponsible. The reality is that students, like all of us, have access to these tools and are going to use them. So, we need to move away from this idea that students are the problem and start focusing on how educators can improve their teaching instead.
However, I do worry that a key cognitive skillset that we develop at universities of reading and processing information and new ideas and developing ones on top of them is being lost. We need to ensure that our teaching preserves this.
Ultimately, this is going to be about developing new norms in old institutions, and we know that that is hard. We need new norms around trust in academic work, new methods of evaluating our own work and that of our students, teaching new skill sets and abandoning some old ones, and we need new norms for referencing and for acknowledging work. And yes, this means new norms around plagiarism. Plagiarism has been in the news a lot lately, but the status quo in an age of generative AI is simply untenable.
Perhaps I'm a Luddite on this, but I cannot let go of the idea entrenched in me that regardless of how a tool was used for research and developing ideas, that final scholarly products should ultimately be written by people. So, this term, I'm going to try a bunch of things and I'm going to see what works. I'll let you know what I learned. I'm Taylor Owen and thanks for watching.
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- AI agents are here, but is society ready for them? ›
- AI and the future of work: Experts Azeem Azhar and Adam Grant weigh in - GZERO Media ›
How to get students back on track after the Great Education Disruption
As the 77th UN General Assembly gets underway, much of the attention will go toward how to breathe new life into the Sustainable Development Goals. Why? Because the pandemic wiped out years of progress on meeting the 17 SDGs, especially No. 4: ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all.
COVID disrupted the lives of some 1.6 billion students around the world. Almost 150 million missed about half of in-person classes in 2020, and 24 million will never return to school.
So, how can we get education back on track before it's too late? Several experts weighed in during the Global Stage livestream conversation "Transforming Education" hosted by GZERO Media in partnership with Microsoft.
The data on the pandemic's crippling effect on education are not enough to get a real sense of the "picture of this time," said Leonardo Garnier, special adviser for the UN's Transforming Education Summit. Still, now we have an opportunity to invest in education like we've never done before — including in low-income countries where the government and businesses actually benefit from a cheap, uneducated labor force. Investing in education, Garnier added, is not only a moral imperative but a wise economic decision because it comes with big long-term payoffs like more educated women entering the workforce.
American Federation of Teachers Executive VP Evelyn DeJesus, for her part, explained how during the pandemic kids were walloped by multiple traumas, arguably the least of which was having to learn on Zoom. She believes it would have been a miracle if test scores hadn't dropped. While recognizing the failures of remote learning, DeJesus still thinks we need to spend big — no more belt-tightening — on broadband access for all, and resents how education has become a political football in America.
COVID's wrecking ball to education exacerbated divisions not only between but also within countries, which in the future will disrupt politics when people get angry from losing out on opportunities, said Eurasia Group Vice Chairman Gerald Butts. How can we stop this? With more global cooperation on education, which should be a "continuum" for everyone, everywhere.
Vickie Robinson, general manager of Microsoft's Airband Initiative to expand global broadband access, said that despite the disruptions caused by the abrupt switch to remote learning during the pandemic, we still need to invest in digital infrastructure because it might just happen again and we can't afford for our kids to lose any more school time. Who should do this? Robinson believes the responsibility for digital inclusion should be shared by governments and the private sector.
Finally, one silver lining from COVID on higher education is that for many workers it shifted the focus from going to the right school to having the right skills, noted Jonathan Rochelle, VP of Product Management, Learning Content & Instructor Experience at Linkedin. And it'll continue, since acquiring skills in lifelong learning must be "a moving target."
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- COVID's impact on education and its long-term geopolitical consequences: Gerald Butts - GZERO Media ›
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South Korea students sit college exam behind plastic barriers and in hospitals due to Covid-19
South Korea is battling a third wave of coronavirus infections, forcing authorities to take strict steps.
Major school exam amid Covid-19 a test for Seoul's anti-virus strategy
Some 493,000 students will take the annual make-or-break college entrance exam on Thursday.
First foreign students arrive in Australia since coronavirus closure
A plane chartered by Charles Darwin University (CDU) carrying 63 international students arrived in Darwin.
China may give students vaccines still under trial
BEIJING • One of China's leading vaccine developers plans to inoculate students going abroad with Covid-19 shots that have yet to get regulatory approval, said people familiar with the matter, as the country pushes scientific boundaries in the race for a viable vaccine.
Japan to tighten checks on visa applications by Chinese students, researchers over espionage concerns: Report
HOKKAIDO - From April next year, Japan will tighten its inspection process in issuing visas, especially to Chinese students and researchers, over growing concerns of espionage and foreign interference, the pro-government Yomiuri newspaper said on Monday (Oct 5).