What is a good college?

We need to have a serious discussion about what we call a “good college.” Having recently gone through the college application process with my oldest childand now starting it again with my youngestI’ve been thinking a lot about choosing a college and what makes a good college. We need to reconsider the better define what and who gets to define a best, top, good, or (god-forbid) elite colleges. Who can we trust to tell us which colleges are best? How should a family define what makes a college “best”? Is it the educational experience, rankings, social life, brand/reputation, cost, or something else entirely?

Let’s explore this …

Continue reading “What is a good college?”

Large Language Models (misnamed AI) are Not Intelligent

AI is not intelligent.

At least not yet. The large language models (colloquially, and incorrectly, referred to as artificial intelligence) that we currently have are not Max Headroom, Skynet, Sunny, Data/Lore, Terminator, or CP3O. They aren’t even WOPR/Joshua (and if you don’t know all the listed AIs, you and I can’t be friends). They are not thinking machines. They are fancy google searches. If we think of them that way we’ll likely get better use out of them. If you make your students/children understand that, they will likely rely on them for more appropriate tasks.

Continue reading “Large Language Models (misnamed AI) are Not Intelligent”