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Welcome to the Saturday edition of The Conversation U.S.’s Daily newsletter.
Students have used resources like CliffsNotes for decades to help them with their schoolwork.
But if students start to rely too heavily on AI to complete their reading assignments, American University linguist Naomi S. Baron sees trouble on the horizon.
Whether you read for pleasure or you’re assigned reading for class, what does it mean when AI distills, compares and contrasts literature on your behalf? What will it do to your ability to formulate your own ideas about a text?
“Cognitive skills aren’t the only thing at stake,” she writes. “We also miss out on so much of what makes reading enjoyable – encountering a moving piece of dialogue, relishing a turn of phrase, connecting with a character.”
This week we also liked stories on potential problems posed by philanthropy filling global public health funding gaps, how data that fuels artificial intelligence can be “poisoned”, and charts showing where U.S. carbon emissions come from.
[ The latest on philanthropy and nonprofits. Sign up for our weekly newsletter Giving Today.]
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Workarounds to reading a book cover-to-cover have existed for decades, but generative AI takes it to new heights.
dem10/E+ via Getty Images
Naomi S. Baron, American University
Even before generative AI went mainstream, fewer people were reading books.
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Moose may have been in Colorado longer than previously thought.
Illustration courtesy of Ettore Mazza
William Taylor, University of Colorado Boulder; John Wendt, Oklahoma State University; Joshua Miller, University of Cincinnati
During much of the last century, moose were apparently rare in Colorado. But lately, encounters with humans are becoming more common as the population increases.
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An orchard orb weaver spider rests in the center of her web.
Daniela Duncan/Moment via Getty Images
Ella Kellner, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
7 distinct types of silk allow different spider species to build webs with various jobs – including to catch prey, tether themselves and protect their eggs.
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James M. Thomas, University of Mississippi
How do white Southerners think about their racial status in a world that is scrutinizing white advantages? Researchers found people across the political spectrum grappling with what being white means.
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Rosalyn R. LaPier, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
An Indigenous scholar explains how starvation was used to acquire the lands of Indigenous peoples. Her great-grandparents experienced ‘starvation winter’ on the Blackfeet reservation.
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Jennifer L. Steele, American University
As AI automates technical work, students and educators need to emphasize social skills and a high degree of self-awareness.
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