Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips A long time ago, a substitute teacher in one of my classes was so interesting that teenagers cut their regular classes to sneak into his class and learn. I think it was 1972 or 1973 in Southern California. We were hippies or thought we were or wanted to be. And teenage hippies […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Writing is a skill (and an art). How do you improve a skill? Do it again tomorrow. Here is some old advice to improving as a writer: write everyday. I don’t have all the quotes to repeat here. I wish I did. I wish I could give credit to those who have […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Big tech advise$ educator$ to drop the coding and teach the AI. Every few years, rich people advise educators on what to educate. This advice often comes as, “Here is money for an after-school program,” and “here is money for in-school programs,” and “here is money, do what we say or else.” […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We tend to ban the latest tools in school so that students won’t “cheat.” Today’s kids laugh at what prior generations banned. My granddaughter is in high school (I have to take a moment to comprehend how that happened so fast). We had a short discussion last night on tools for learning. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips AI writes more code than people can review. Now AI can review code. So why waste time by having people review code? There are benefits. AI is writing code, i.e., software is writing software. AI can write code 24 hours a day without a break. Wow! And AI writes code fast. Double […]

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by Dwayne Phillips If “big” is in the description, it is in all the descriptions. That hurts. Here is a process for writing a big document: Uh, this usually means a BIG waste of resources. The BIG draft means the writer works and works and works. Finally, finished. The BIG review means half-a-dozen people read […]

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by Dwayne Phillips One way of accomplishing work is to employ fewer better people. Of course this works. That depends on the definition of “better people.” One way of accomplishing work is to employ fewer better people. It works. Of course it works. Let’s use this definition: Better people are those who can use the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I find, or re-find, a basic concept of writing non-fiction. I recently worked through a piece of rewriting and revision. I used several AI systems combined with the best writing advice I accumulated through the years. When it was over, I attempted a summary. Surely there was something to pin on the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips At Brown University, a professor shows that students used AI systems to get good scores on a take-home test. The in-class test scores were much lower. Does any of this matter? For a few days, this story was sort of famous (here is one version of the story). For one reason or […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I would hope that journalists would understand AI and software better than this. I am disappointed. Yet another story about AI written by the ignorant for the masses: AI models that lie and cheat appear to be growing in number with reports of deceptive scheming surging in the last six months, a […]

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