Across much of rural America, the nearest primary-care clinic is a long drive from home, the physicians who staff it are nearing retirement, and there aren’t many replacements in line. The usual response is to call for training more clinicians. But the more useful question is often where they end up practicing, and that’s where […] … learn more→
Author Archives: Kevin
How Risepoint and Online Education Help Put Nurse Practitioners Where Primary Care Is Scarce
What is artificial general intelligence – and is it already here?
OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman, recently suggested that its advanced model, known as GPT-6 Astra, could mark the arrival of something called artificial general intelligence, or AGI. If AI itself is often defined as the ability to simulate human intelligence, OpenAI defines AGI as an AI system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work – […] … learn more→
A Six-week Summer Course needs a different Housing plan
A six-week course may occupy only a small part of the academic year, but it still requires somewhere to live, study and settle into a routine. LSE Summer School illustrates the planning challenge: its courses run in three-week sessions, and students can combine sessions to study for six or nine weeks. For someone attending two […] … learn more→
Being able to evaluate oneself: a skill that improves learning and maturity
Imagine a 8th-grade science class with 13- and 14-year-old students learning to formulate scientific hypotheses. The teacher explains that a hypothesis must propose a possible explanation for a phenomenon, allow us to anticipate what will happen, and be testable. Then, he places a balloon over the mouth of a bottle and poses a challenge: can […] … learn more→
Unravelling the university
At the end of August this year, I clocked up two important milestones: 12 years in Australia, and my departure from Griffith University in Brisbane, where I had spent those 12 years after arriving from the European University Institute in Florence in 2014. This time of change has led me to reflect on university life […] … learn more→
AI is devastating higher education, but the system was already broken
If you work at a university today, you talk a lot with the dead. I don’t mean that as a metaphor – or, at least, not entirely. Generative AI trains on people. Its algorithms learn from humans, requiring our quirks and idiosyncrasies to improve. If the models are exposed predominantly to the output from other […] … learn more→
A “liminal space” between humans and AI: will the boundary be less discernible than we would like to believe?
THE ESSENTIALS Until now, tools were quite distinct from the being that used them. Today, the emergence of mainstream artificial intelligence systems is blurring the lines: our memories and decisions are often intimately linked to our digital footprints, while modern computer systems feed on our data. Considering a gradual blurring of this conceptual boundary allows […] … learn more→
Why we are finding it increasingly difficult to read long texts – and how to maintain this ability
THE ESSENTIALS The latest international PISA survey revealed a decline in reading levels, particularly with long texts. In addition to attentional skills, so-called “deep” reading depends on the resonance that the text evokes in each individual. What conditions must be maintained so that reading remains a means of self-development and shaping one’s experience? Fifteen-year-olds are […] … learn more→
How long until wearable brain‑computer interfaces become mainstream?
Devices that link human minds to computers are progressing rapidly. Already, these brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are allowing patients with severe paralysis to communicate, use digital devices or control smart homes with their brains. Trials are also exploring whether they could help restore patients’ speech or control robotic machinery. One British patient with a spinal injury […] … learn more→
Are you using AI to study? Here’s how to do it well
Artificial intelligence (AI) means high school and uni students now have access to a resource that can potentially “do all the work for them”. While this can reduce students’ immediate stress in submitting assessments, it may negatively impact their long-term learning. As high school and uni students enter the end-of-year exam period, they might look […] … learn more→
