Different Year
This school year, U.S. schools will have many good artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Bard, but many teachers remain skeptical about their usefulness and the potential they hold.

Although many argue how artificial intelligence would only make for more productive work and ticking off more tasks for the day, there are still people who worry that they could be replaced by it specifically.

This autumn, however, the picture is slightly different. Several educators have been quietly pushing for the creation of new artificial intelligence chatbots to offer teachers unlimited access to sometimes confusing and often paid peer-reviewed research on the topics that trouble them most.

Competition or support for teacher?
In June, the International Society for Technology in Education introduced Stretch AI, a tool built on content vetted by ISTE and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. ISTE made it available in beta form for select users. All of the chatbot’s content is geared toward educators, and it is trained solely on materials developed or approved by both organizations.

According to its creators, in about six months the tool will be able to review external, peer-reviewed research in education and produce “quite understandable and meaningful results” from peer-reviewed journals, says Richard Kulata, chief executive of ISTE.

“There is a big gap between what we know from research and what happens in practice,” Richard commented.

One of the main reasons for this, he says, is that most research is published in a format that is “completely inaccessible to teachers”.

As in its beta version, the new chatbot will indicate the sources used to generate each answer. It will also notify users when it doesn’t have enough information to give a reliable answer.

The developers are still in the early stages of deciding what academic journals to include. For now, they are experimenting with a few key scholarly articles, but will expand the chatbot’s reach if initial prototypes prove useful to educators.

Will it become a trend? 
However, ISTE is not the only organization aiming to make education research more widely accessible through chatbots. The Learning Agency, a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., is also testing an unnamed version of a bot designed to offer answers to education research queries.

According to Daniel Willingham, a UVA researcher, education-focused chatbots are useful when they not only include reliable results, but also put them in context.

For example, in response to a query about the evidence for phonics education, it should be noted that while the evidence is quite strong, many mediocre studies and “hyperbolized claims” supporting alternative methods obscure the overall picture – a delicate but accurate detail. One that a credible chatbot would do well to make.

How productive is it?
How productive will the new artificial intelligence educational tool be and will it replace the need for teachers? Questions that give no peace of mind to many who have chosen this profession and answers that only time could tell.

According to Reuters, the Israel-based company will not only make the cuts but also close some of its offices in Asia. The reason for this is a scandal involving a fake letter of credit used as collateral in a deal with an insurer.

The offices the company is expected to close are in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul, but it will retain employees in Tel Aviv, New York, London, Dubai and Bermuda.

“In order to solidify the foundation of the company and reassure the industry, leadership must return its focus to core services while reducing overall costs, including parting ways with some of our employees”, Vesttoo said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

Vesttoo is currently conducting an internal and external analysis of the events leading up to the first fraudulent credential report. The size of the fintech company was 200 employees.

“These are painful, but important decisions that we must make at this time. Our focus remains on regaining our footing and emerging from this challenge stronger than before”, the company continued.

The scandal surrounding the fraud has changed and halted the company’s plans to raise about $200 million in late-stage funding that would have valued the firm at nearly $2 billion.

The acquisition of ZeniMax Media cost Microsoft $7.5 billion. In closing the deal, Microsoft promised Xbox and PC exclusive games and has so far delivered Redfall and Starfield will debut on September 6. Bethesda’s upcoming Indiana Jones game is also an Xbox and PC exclusive.

“When we acquired ZeniMax one of the impetus for that is that Sony had done a deal for Deathloop and Ghostwire… to pay Bethesda to not ship those games on Xbox. So the discussion about Starfield when we heard that Starfield was potentially also going to end up skipping Xbox, we can’t be in a position as a third-place console where we fall further behind on our content ownership so we’ve had to secure content to remain viable in the business.”

said Spencer.

Buying Bethesda and acquiring Activision Blizzard, according to the Xbox boss is a way to compete with Sony. The proposed deal with Activision Blizzard is valued at $68.7 billion.

According to Google, this update has increased the accuracy of calculation-based word and math problems in their internal challenge datasets by 30%.

The tech giant claims that Bard should be able to provide information such as simple odds of numbers in the millions, the rate of increase in savings, and what words like “lollipop” look like in reverse (this is the strongest weapon the tool has against the competition).

Google also announced a feature that allows the data Bard produces to be edited and manipulated in Sheets. This is the perfect update for people who hate spreadsheets.

In a statement, the European Data Protection Board announced the fine, commenting that it was imposed after an investigation into Facebook by the Irish Data Protection Commission, the main regulator that oversees Meta’s activities in Europe. Such action highlights uncertainty over how global businesses can legally transfer EU users’ data to servers abroad.

But that’s not all. Meta has been ordered to stop processing personal data of European users in the US within six months.

“Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transferred is huge. The unprecedented fine is a strong signal to organizations that serious breaches have far-reaching consequences.”

commented Andrea Jelinek, Chair of the European Data Protection Board.

In her view, the company’s breach is very serious as it relates to transmissions that are systematic, repetitive and continuous.

The EU regulatory body said the processing and storage of personal data in the United States violates a signed European data protection law known as the General Data Protection Regulation.

This is the largest fine ever imposed under the GDPR. The previous record of €746 million ($805.7 million) was imposed on Amazon (AMZN) in 2021.

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“Ataccama continues to invest in its rapidly growing partner ecosystem to champion customers throughout their data-driven business transformation journeys. We see UST at the forefront of digital transformation with a strong presence in our strategic markets and verticals. They are instrumental in helping ambitious companies plan for and adopt digital ways of operating. We’re excited to bring them on as a strategic partner in North America.”

Niranjan Ramsunder, Chief Technology Officer, UST added that the business is not the only one today generating massive amounts of data. They are also going through an incredible number of large and small mergers and acquisitions. At the same time, they are facing intense regulatory pressure to track every piece of data for audit, traceability, and privacy compliance.

That’s the reason why UST’s data management practice will benefit from Ataccama’s best in class capabilities around data governance. The goal is to provide comprehensive data management with AI-driven approaches for proactive data quality, stated Niranjan Ramsunder, Chief Technology Officer, UST.