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Submission + - Musk v. Altman Verdict: Victory for OpenAI and Microsoft, Not Vindication

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Let's play Jeopardy! A. OpenAI, Sam Altman, Microsoft. OJ, the Golden State Killer, Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein. Q. Who are beneficiaries of statute of limitations laws? (source: ChatGPT).

For Superman fans, yesterday's Musk v. Altman verdict in favor of OpenAI may conjure up memories of the 1958 Adventures of Superman episode The Mysterious Cube, in which a fugitive hides inside an impenetrable cube for seven years so that he can legally escape prosecution once the limitations period for presumptive death expires.

A press release celebrating OpenAI's legal team win in Musk v. Altman reminds us that the win was a victory for OpenAI, Altman, and Microsoft — not vindication. From the press release: "After three weeks of trial, the jury deliberated for about ninety minutes before finding that both OpenAI and Microsoft had proven their statute of limitations defense for all claims. Because the Defense prevailed on the statute of limitations, which was the very first question on the verdict form, the jury did not need to consider the merits of Musk’s claims. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers adopted the jury’s findings and promptly dismissed all of Musk’s claims from the bench."

Submission + - Code.org, Microsoft Celebrate Georgia's New CS + AI Graduation Requirement

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: From tech-bankrolled nonprofit Code.org's Tuesday LinkedIn post boasting that Georgia just made AI and CS education the law: "Georgia is now our 14th CS [high school] graduation requirement state, and the 3rd to legislate AI as part of that requirement. Governor Brian Kemp signed SB 179 into law today. Years of work. Countless conversations. Real results. [...] And a special thank you to the Technology Association of Georgia and Microsoft, whose partnership was instrumental in making this happen. [...] AI and CS education for every student. One state at a time."

Microsoft State Government Affairs employees threw the partnership love right back at Code.org with their own LinkedIn posts, saying: "At Microsoft, we’re proud to support this milestone. SB 179 positions Georgia as a national leader in workforce innovation, expanding access to computer science and AI education to build a durable, diverse talent pipeline aligned with the demands of a modern digital economy. This approach reflects Microsoft’s commitment to advancing responsible, transparent, and secure AI, and reinforces the importance of early education in shaping how the next generation develops and uses technology. Grateful for the leadership and partnership that made this possible."

The Bill specifies that "grants shall be provided to eligible entities to deliver professional development programs for teachers providing instruction in computer science courses and content," explaining that "'High-quality professional learning providers' means institutions of higher education in this state, local school systems, nonprofit organizations, or private entities," which would seem to include Code.org, Code.org's higher education Regional Partners, and Microsoft.

While the legislation celebration may begin in 2026, the Bill notes the Class of 2037 will be the first whose graduation is impacted by the new requirement: "Each local board of education shall require all students who will graduate in 2037 or later, as a condition of graduation from high school, to complete a course in computer science or a career, technical, and agricultural education (CTAE) course embedded with computer science which meets the requirements provided in subparagraph (B) of this paragraph".

Submission + - Will Elon Win His Case Against OpenAI? Predictions?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: With the nine-person jury set to begin deliberations Monday in Musk v. Altman, this week's GeekWire Podcast discusses the trial, its potential outcome, and how the verdict may profoundly impact the larger nonprofit world.

"So, here's my prediction," opined GeekWire's Todd Bishop. "They're going to find that OpenAI did in fact have a breach of charitable trust of the nonprofit mission. I think it's less clear that they're going to say that Brockman and Altman unjustly enriched themselves. I'm not sure of that. And I'm pretty sure that Microsoft is going to get off without any issues based on what I heard. I think that's the way it's going to go. [...] So, if somebody were to force me to go on to some kind of prediction market and put my life savings down, that's how I would do it. [...] Ultimately you can think what you want of these people, but it comes down to the law and whether the jury finds that the facts meet the specifics of the law and the jury instructions that the judge gives to them. I think witness credibility is also really significant here. And I think one of the key questions is whom do they believe or disbelieve more, Elon or Sam? And I think that's a very difficult choice to make. [laughter] It's going to be very interesting to see how it plays out."

So, if you were a betting person, who would your money be on?

Submission + - Autosave or Manual Save, That is the Question

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Whether you're editing documents or code — locally or in the cloud, single-user or in collaboration with others — autosave has increasingly become the default and sometimes the only behavior rather than manual saving. Which may be a plus for those who forget to periodically save their work, but a minus to those who wish to intentionally control when and where their files are saved.

Interesting, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of published empirical studies to explain how Miclyrosoft, Google, Apple, and others arrived at the decision that autosave-as-default for the masses was the wiser choice (a skeptic might point to cloud architecture limitations, unstable software & infrastructure, reduced technical support costs, and industry herd behavior as deciding factors).

In the absence of rigorous, peer-reviewed studies, which is the lesser of the two evils for your work: autosave, and run the risk of silently preserving inadvertent mistakes, or manual save, and run the risk of silently discarding changes? And, with increased emphasis on risk/governance and collaborative document sharing, any thoughts on why documents aren't typically opened in View instead of Edit mode to reduce the risk of inadvertent changes?

So, is Ctrl-S a bug and/or a feature?

Submission + - In Backlash Against Tech in Schools, Parents Are Winning Rollbacks

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: From Salt Lake City to New York City, the New York Times reports, parents are demanding more sway over the digital tools that schools give children:

"Los Angeles parents are fed up with schools loading up students with laptops and tablets, and assigning schoolwork on a slew of apps. Some families, who had decided against giving their children screens at home, told school board members that they were appalled to find young students using school-issued devices — even in kindergarten. Some parents complained that their children were able to play video games or watch social media videos during school. Others reported that an A.I. app, which fourth graders were assigned to use to create portraits of the fictional Swedish schoolgirl Pippi Longstocking, generated sexualized imagery."

"Such concerns prompted parents last year to form a group called Schools Beyond Screens to push for increased technology oversight in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest public school system. Last week, the Los Angeles school board passed a resolution requiring the district to restrict student access to YouTube, eliminate digital devices entirely through first grade and develop screen time limits for higher grades — becoming the first major U.S. school system to do so. The parents’ successful campaign points to an escalating national reckoning for the powerful classroom technology industry. Encouraged by the fast spread of school cellphone bans, parents, teachers and legislators across the United States have banded together to ensure that technology use in schools is beneficial for learning."

Submission + - Is "Outsourcing Our Thinking to AI" a Bug or a Feature?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In a year-end podcast, GeekWire noted that Microsoft President Brad Smith offered his own evidence to investors that AI-is-real at Microsoft's Annual Shareholder Meeting in December, explaining that he relied on Copilot’s Researcher Agent's memory (YouTube, audio) earlier in the day to recall and explain an issue for company leaders that Microsoft faced seven or eight years ago (to help them deal with a similar problem they now faced), and it generated a 25-page report with 100 citations that so wowed his colleagues that they clamored for him to share the prompt he used to produce it so they too could learn how to use AI so effectively. While Smith didn't share either the report or prompt with investors in the webcast, the anecdote alone left his fellow Microsoft execs nodding and smiling in amazement (GeekWire couldn't resist wondering aloud how many of the recipients used their AI agents to summarize the 25-page report rather than having to actually read it).

Reminiscing about Def Leppard in her weekly Ed-Tech and AI newsletter Second Breakfast, watchdog Audrey Watters on Friday painted a much bleaker picture of the what-me-worry-about-thinking AI utopia presented to Microsoft investors, cautioning: "Our understanding of the world — knowledge, memories, skills — are never, as are the versions of these things fixed in print or in the machine, inert. And importantly, the more we know, the more we practice knowing — thinking, reading, writing, imagining, talking to one another — the more we strengthen our ability to know. And the inverse is true too: the less we practice, the weaker our cognitive powers. The more superficial and scattered our mental activities – skimming, clicking — the more shallow our thinking. The more we 'outsource our thinking' to 'AI' (hell, to the computer or the Web), the more we might find ourselves unable to think deeply at all. [...] There's a product, but there is no process for you, the user. No discernment, no contemplation. No recollection or consolidation of earlier thoughts and ideas and memories. No cognitive effort through which you will think or learn or know or grow or ever remember any of this."

Sharing Watters' concerns, The New Yorker's Jessica Winter asks, What Will It Take to Get A.I. Out of Schools? "The tech world assumes that A.I.-aided education is necessary and inevitable. A growing number of parents, educators, and cognitive scientists say the opposite," Winters begins. She closes with a reminder that "Nowhere is it written that a multinational conglomerate with a market cap of roughly four trillion dollars is fated to command our public schools, or to grant fellowships to the leaders of those schools, or to monetize the inefficient children who attend them. Another item in the Student Tech Bill of Rights, in fact, is the 'right to a learning environment that is free from undue corporate influence.'"

Submission + - Why AI Babysitter Is the Hottest New Profession

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "AI may allow anyone to generate code, but only a computer scientist can maintain a system," explained Google.org Global Head Maggie Johnson in a LinkedIn post, Computer Science Education in the AI Era. Johnson was formerly Director of Education at Google and a founding Board member of the Google.org-funded nonprofit Code.org, which last year launched a campaign to make CS and AI a high school graduation requirement.

Johnson continued: "As AI-generated code becomes more accurate and ubiquitous, the role of the computer scientist shifts from author to technical auditor or expert. While large language models can generate functional code in milliseconds, they lack the contextual judgment and specialized knowledge to ensure that the output is safe, efficient, and integrates correctly within a larger system without a person’s oversight. [...] The human-in-the-loop must possess the technical depth to recognize when a piece of code is sub-optimal or dangerous in a production environment. [...] "We need computer scientists to perform forensics, tracing the logic of an AI-generated module to identify logical fallacies or security loopholes. Modern CS education should prepare students to verify and secure these black-box outputs."

The NY Times reports that companies are already struggling to find engineers to review the explosion of AI-written code. Any thoughts on what AI Babysitting might/should pay?

Submission + - Stanford Daily Ponders Fate of Bill Gates Namesake Building on April Fools' Day

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Gates Computer Science Building renamed Peter Thiel Center for Panoptic Computing reads the headline of an April Fools' Day story that ran in the Humor section of The Stanford Daily (with the further disclaimer that "This article is purely satirical and fictitious"). The story begins: "Following revelations that the billionaire founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, had a longstanding relationship with convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, Stanford has announced it will strip Gates’ name from the William H. Gates Computer Science Building and instead honor alumnus Peter Thiel B.A. ‘89, JD ‘92. Gates, who is not a Stanford alumnus, gave an initial gift of $6 million toward the building’s construction in 1992."

While fictional, the story does make one wonder what may become of the academic and institutional buildings worldwide named after Bill Gates in the blowback over his past ties to Epstein, which have already played a factor in the breakdown of his marriage to Melinda French Gates and friendship with Warren Buffet. In addition to The Gates Computer Science Building at Stanford, this includes the Bill and Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex at the University of Texas at Austin, Bill and Melinda Gates Hall at Cornell, The Bill & Melinda Gates Center for Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, and The William H. Gates Building at MIT's Stata Center. Buildings named after Gates' parents include Mary Gates Hall and William H. Gates Hall at the University of Washington, and The William Gates Building at the University of Cambridge (UK).

Aside from the Thiel angle, The Stanford Daily's April Fools' Day story may not be as far-fetched as it may seem — many universities' naming policies include provisions allowing donors' names to be removed from buildings, programs, or other facilities under extraordinary circumstances. For example, the University of Washington's Regent Policy No. 50 states, "The University reserves the right to revoke and terminate any naming on reasonable grounds not limited to the revelation of corporate or individual acts detracting from the University’s mission, integrity, or reputation." Then again, UW notes that Bill's parents and siblings served as UW Regents for decades, so one expects Bill will be granted some leeway here for what he has characterized as 'foolish' choices on his part.

Submission + - Washington Post Announces Transition to 'Modern' All-GenAI Content Format 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Inspired in part by Amazon's success in using LLMs to eliminate the cost of Java programmers, Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos on Wednesday announced that the Post is pivoting to a 'modern' all-GenAI content format. "Our HR AI agents are notifying our remaining journalists that their services are no longer needed and thanking them for creating past content that powers the AI models that are replacing them," added Matt Murray, the Post’s executive editor.

It's the latest cost-cutting move at WaPo, which laid off more than 300 journalists in February as it closed its sports and books sections and fired all staff photographers, blaming the layoffs in part on "the rise of generative A.I." The move, Bezos explained, will also enable the Post to use GenAI-produced images to accompany its GenAI-produced news stories, eliminating the need to pay freelance photographers.

At the end of 2024, Mr. Bezos described the Post's struggles to cut costs and boost readership in an interview at a conference hosted by The New York Times: “We saved The Washington Post once, and we’re going to save it a second time,” he said at the time. "And now, thanks to the magic of Amazon Bedrock," Bezos said Wednesday in a zoom call from his $500 million yacht Koru (his home away from homes), "we're going to save it again."

Submission + - Chromebook Remorse: Tech Backlash at Schools Extends Beyond Phones

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In addition to student cell phone bans, the New York Times' Natasha Singer reports that some schools are also rethinking the wisdom of always-on-and-available school-issued laptops :

Inge Esping, the principal of McPherson Middle School, has spent years battling digital devices for children’s attention. Four years ago, her school in McPherson, Kan., banned student cellphones during the school day. But digital distractions continued. Many children watched YouTube videos or played video games on their school-issued Chromebook laptops. Some used school Gmail accounts to bully fellow students.

In December, the middle school asked all 480 students to return the Chromebooks they had freely used in class and at home. Now the school keeps the laptops, which run on Google’s Chrome operating system, in carts parked in classrooms. Children take notes mostly by hand, and laptops are used sparingly, for specific activities assigned by teachers. “We just felt we couldn’t have Chromebooks be that huge distraction,” said Ms. Esping, 43, Kansas’ 2025 middle school principal of the year. “This technology can be a tool. It is not the answer to education.”

McPherson Middle School no longer gives students their own Chromebooks to use in school and take home. The laptops are now kept in classroom carts and used only for specific activities assigned by teachers. McPherson Middle School, about an hour’s drive from Wichita, is at the forefront of a new tech backlash spreading in education: Chromebook remorse.

Elsewhere in the Times, an opinion piece by CS prof Cal Newport explains why Johnny — and his parents — can't concentrate and what to do about it.

Submission + - Melania Trump Hosts World's First Spouses at White House AI Show-and-Tell

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In Melania and the Robot, the New York Times reports on First Lady Melania Trump's inaugural Fostering the Future Together Coalition Summit, which brought together international leaders, First Spouses from around the world, tech leaders, educators, and nonprofits to collaborate on practical solutions that expand access to educational tools while strengthening protections for children in digital environments (Day 2 WH summary). The Times begins:

"On Wednesday, Mrs. Trump appeared at the White House alongside Figure 3, a humanoid, A.I.-powered robot whose uses, according to the company that makes it, include fetching towels, carrying groceries and serving champagne. But Mrs. Trump joins tech executives and some researchers in envisioning a world beyond robot butlery. She is interested in how these robots could cut it as educators. Both clad in shades of white, the first lady and the visiting robot walked into a gathering of first spouses from around the world, a group that included Sara Netanyahu of Israel, Olena Zelenska of Ukraine, and Brigitte Macron of France. The dulcet tones from a (presumably human) military orchestra played as the first lady and her guest entered the event. Both lady and robot extolled the virtues of further integrating robots into the educational and social lives of children. In the history of modern first-lady initiatives, which have included building a national book festival (Laura Bush), reshuffling the food pyramid (Michelle Obama) and advocating for free community college (Jill Biden), Mrs. Trump’s involvement of a humanoid robot in education policy was a first."

"Figure 3 delivered brief remarks and delivered salutations in several languages. With its sleek black-and-white appearance, Figure 3 would fit right in with the first lady’s branding aesthetic, which includes a self-titled coffee table book and movie, not least because the name “MELANIA” was emblazoned on the side of its glossy plastic head. After Figure 3 teetered gingerly away, Mrs. Trump looked around the room and told them that the future looked a lot like what they had just witnessed. 'The future of A.I. is personified,' she told her audience. 'It will be formed in the shape of humans. Very soon artificial intelligence will move from our mobile phones to humanoids that deliver utility.' She invited her guests to envision a future in which a robot philosopher educated children."

Submission + - Tech-Backed CS Teachers Association Pivots to AI Literacy, Scores $11M NSF Grant

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: On Thursday, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced an $11 million award to the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) in furtherance of the Trump administration's executive order on Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth that directed federal agencies to promote AI literacy. The award will launch Artificial Intelligence Professional Development (PD) Weeks: CS Foundations for Creating with AI, a multistate initiative that will prepare thousands of K-12 educators to teach foundational computer science (CS) and AI at scale. "Artificial Intelligence is transforming every sector of our economy, and American students must be prepared not just to use AI, but to understand it and create with it," explained the NSF's Brian Stone. "We are thinking beyond AI towards what the White House calls the 'Future of Intelligence.'"

CSTA joined fellow tech-backed nonprofit Code.org last December to pivot the nation's K-12 schoolchildren from coding to AI literacy during CS Education Week. Replacing CSEdWeek's Hour of Code event was a new Hour of AI event, a move called for and backed by Microsoft — that featured AI literacy tutorials from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, all of whom are Strategic CSTA Partners and Code.org Lifetime Supporters.

"Computer science teachers will continue to be leaders in preparing students for an AI-enabled future," said CSTA Executive Director Jake Baskin in a LinkedIn post. "Over the next two years, this initiative will allow us to equip thousands of K-12 educators nationwide with the knowledge and instructional strategies needed to teach foundational CS and AI at scale. On the heels of last year's announcement of the AI education Executive Order, Baskin (formerly Director of State Government Affairs at Code.org) joined the nation's tech leaders in signing a letter of support that appeared in a New York Times ad to kick off a new Code.org led campaign to make CS and AI a graduation requirement for all students.

Submission + - CS Course-Resisting NOLA Catholic High School Raises Ire of Tech-Backed Code.org

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In its March 11th meeting, the Code.org Advocacy Coalition — whose members include Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft — raised concerns about the filing of Louisiana House Bill 787, which aims to remove a new requirement for all high school students — public and private — to complete a computer science course to continue to be eligible for Louisiana TOPS scholarships. Public school students are subject to a new Code.org-backed CS course high school graduation requirement, but that requirement does not apply to private school students.

"So, to try to explain Louisiana's situation," Code.org told Coalition members (video, 16:08), "is that they have two sections of code that are basically applicable to this. One is their strict graduation requirements. It says every student has to have these courses before they graduate. That's what most states have. It only applies to public schools. They have a completely different section of code that is about their TOPS scholarship program, their state provided scholarship program. And what the DOE has tried to do for several years now is tried to have those two things mirrored. So, when we wrote the CSGRAD requirement in Louisiana, those two things were mirrored. We had to actually fix it, but they ended up being mirrored. What the problem, or what has the impetus for this legislation being filed is that TOPS applies to any student in the state of Louisiana wanting state graduation or state college funds. So, that includes private school students, includes Catholic school students, etc. So, though the straight graduation requirement does not apply to them, if they want state scholarship funding, they have to meet everything that the state says because the two sections of code are mirrored. This legislation would remove the computer science from the TOPS requirement, so the state scholarship money."

And while even Code.org agreed this seems like a reasonable ask, they went on to explain why this bill — which was blamed on a New Orleans Catholic High School in a slide — must be defeated due to fears that it may impact the Coalition's mission. From the transcript: "And you say, okay, well that's not a huge deal. That's how most of our states are that we have a graduation requirement for all public schools. It doesn't apply to private schools. I agree on the face. The problem goes back to that the DOE does like for those two things to be mirrored. And our fear is that if this legislation starts having legs and gets close to the finish line that DOE or LOSA and I have no indication that they would do this, but just knowing that they want the two mirrored, they may say, well, if you're going to remove it from TOPS, remove it from graduation requirement. I hope they wouldn't, but that is unfortunately a reality we might have to face. [...] We're going to continue trying to fight it. And I want to give Jamie and the DOE down in Louisiana major props because they have bent over backwards over the past two years to try to make alternative methods, giving all these schools things that they can do with students including a competency level exam that can replace it for those students in the Catholic schools. There's a lot that they've done and this is pretty much from one of the Catholic schools in the state. Most of the rest of them have at least figured out the process. But I was in a meeting down there once and the principal of this one particular school looked at me and said, "I will work to get this repealed no matter what y'all do." So, this is coming pretty much from one individual or one school. So, we're going to continue fighting it. We're going to hope that it does not have legs and we'll see how it goes. But if you have connections to Louisiana, you might want to activate those to try to head off this and defeat it."

Submission + - NY Times Credits Python for Making Interest Calculation Easier than Assembly 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "One early computer language was Assembly, and it was devilishly hard to write," explains Clive Thompson in this week's New York Times Magazine cover story, Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming. "Say you wanted to write some code that would calculate how much you’d have if you got 5 percent interest on $10,000 over 10 years. Back in the 1960s, that would have required perhaps nine lines of pretty obtuse Assembly. [...] By the ’80s and ’90s, as computers became more powerful, engineers were able to create languages that took care of all that memory management for you, and also turned common asks into simple commands. In Python, a coder can perform that exact same calculation very simply: 'total_amount = 10000 * (1.05 ** 10).' That single line tells the computer to multiply 10,000 by the interest rate over 10 years and store the result in the variable labeled 'total_amount.' Programmers no longer need to think about where all the data is being stored in the computer’s memory; Python does that for them. It is, in other words, a layer of abstraction on top of all that fiddly memory business. Writing in that language is delightfully easier."

Not so fast, replied readers, who took issue with implying that Python — first released in 1991 — deserves credit for making interest calculation easy, pointing out that other languages such as FORTRAN, COBOL, and BASIC did so as much as 30+ years earlier. "Great article. Some of the history seems a little off though," said etaeng. "I was programming in the 1960s, and I can assure you that we had computer languages that created layers of abstraction even way back then," replied Post Mortem. "Notably, Fortran handled scientific and mathematical problems and Cobol addressed the business world. The code for Cobol would look something like, 'ADD INTEREST TO PRINCIPAL'. So while the author’s point is fundamentally correct, it’s a mistake to think that it took until the ‘80s and ‘90s for usable natural language approaches to arise." Commenter Howard Fairman explained, "the supposedly-breakthrough Python code for calculating compound interest actually dates from the advent of Fortran — 'formula translation' — in 1957." And gs had this to say: "An interesting but overlong article. But that interest calculation could also be done in the 1950s [IBM’s 1958 FORTRAN demo of compound interest by John Backus] in one line of COBOL or FORTRAN code. You didn‘t have to wait til the 1990s for Python."

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