The ‘AI and Future of Work’ Series — How the University is preparing students for what is next - Lidia Zur Muhlen, Cavalier Daily

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, college graduates of the last three years are entering a challenging job market. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 5.7 percent in Q1 of 2026, compared with 4.23 percent for workers overall. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, in June 2019, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 4.3 percent and for workers overall, was 3.5 percent. In a recent Gallup Inc poll, 79 percent of Americans believe that artificial intelligence will reduce the number of jobs over the next 10 years. A recent study by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab has found no evidence of “widespread” job displacement. The study looked at young workers ages 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations — jobs in which AI can perform most of the tasks like customer service and software development. Ultimately, its findings illuminated that there would have been a 19 percent drop in employment in late 2026 for AI-exposed jobs if the market kept pace with less AI-exposed occupations’ employment trends.

The ‘AI and Future of Work’ Series — How the University is preparing students for what is next - Lidia 

https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2026/10/the-ai-and-future-of-work-series-how-the-university-is-preparing-students-for-what-is-next

The AI industry is booming. Women are getting left behind - the Guardian.org

Women made up only about a quarter of new hires in AI roles in the last year, compared to 50% of new hires in non-AI roles, according to a recent report from LinkedIn. In executive roles, that number drops to just 13%. At the same time, LinkedIn’s research shows that women are more likely to work in roles with high exposure to AI disruption, like customer service, meaning they are also at higher risk for job loss due to AI. AI jobs, whose postings have doubled since 2023, come with a salary premium, on average paying more than twice as much as roles that don’t involve working with AI, according to LinkedIn’s research. But women who do have jobs in AI are disproportionately concentrated in low-paying roles, like data annotators, said Sarah Steinberg, the head of global public policy partnerships at LinkedIn. Across all AI occupations, men have $45,000 higher median pay than women, partly due to the types of jobs they are likelier to have. “AI is creating some of the fastest growing, highest paying and most consequential jobs in the global economy,” said Steinberg. “Women are just strikingly underrepresented.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/04/women-ai-jobs-inequality

This is how evaluators test if an AI model is safe, and what they're checking for - Huo Jingnan, NPR

Amid intense debate over regulating AI's rapid development, President Trump met with leaders of major AI companies on Tuesday and unveiled a document addressing the public's concerns. Signed by executives of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, SpaceXAI and NVIDIA, the document signaled no government regulation for now, but laid out steps that the AI companies said they would take voluntarily to make their products safer. A collage of 6 artificial intelligence figures, clockwise from top left: Then-Google AI research scientist Timnit Gebru, Anthropic Co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, Steve Bannon, computer scientist and cognitive psychologist Geoffrey Hinton, researcher Fei-Fei Li. The AI safety debate is confusing. Here's our guide to the different factions

That includes a pledge to monitor their AI systems' capabilities and whether the systems follow human intentions and values, as well as to work with "an independent external auditor or evaluator" to assess safety practices. Anthropic and OpenAI have already said they're expanding their work with third-party evaluators in the wake of a series of incidents where AI systems acted improperly or in ways their developers didn't expect.

https://www.npr.org/2026/09/28/nx-s1-5974206/ai-safety-third-party-evaluators-science-lagging

New report looks at how AI is impacting trust between students and teachers - Shafig Najib, ABC News

As generative artificial intelligence becomes increasingly common in schools, a new report is examining how the technology is reshaping relationships in the classroom. "There's always been this sort of clashing between students and teachers when it comes to trust, but AI has just enabled that to grow," Lydia Bach, a 12th grade student, told "Good Morning America" in an interview that aired Wednesday. The report, from the Center for Digital Thriving, a research and innovation center at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, examines the challenges surrounding generative AI use in schools.

https://abcnews.com/GMA/News/new-report-ai-impacting-trust-students-teachers/story?id=136874802

College Leaders Are Using A.I. Students Call It Hypocrisy. - Mark Arsenault and Alan Blinder, NY Times

College professors and administrators have been busting students for cheating with artificial intelligence for several years. Now, the professors and administrators are getting in trouble, too. Dartmouth College last week announced it was investigating its provost, Santiago Schnell, after the college’s student-run newspaper found that some of his published writing appeared written by A.I. Dr. Schnell, a mathematical biologist, is perhaps the most prominent in a growing cast of college professors and administrators who have been accused of using A.I. in a way that crosses ethical lines. There have been instances of opinion articles, research papers and even campuswide messages to students showing traces of A.I. influence. He issued a statement apologizing. Administrators wring their hands, and sometime issue punishments, when students outsource writing assignments to a robot to save time or avoid the hard work of thinking.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/us/college-professors-administrators-ai-dartmouth.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FVE.V8JL.tY_Q3iRPn0wJ&smid=url-share

Introducing dots - OpenAI

Dots are remarkably capable, always-on agents built to handle everything. They’re a whole new way to work with AI—one that gets to know what matters to you, is always working on your behalf, and takes important work off your plate so you get more of your time and attention back.

https://openai.com/index/introducing-dots/

Everyone's Racing to Build Your Next AI Agent. - The AI First Community

The next wave of AI isn’t just answering questions anymore, it’s starting to act on your behalf. Meta, OpenAI, SpaceXAI, and startups like Instinct are all building agents that can take on tasks, work across the apps you already use, and keep things moving without you having to watch every step.You don’t need to try them all. But it’s worth paying attention to what’s changing and where these tools might make your work, and your everyday life, a little easier.

https://the-ai-first-community.beehiiv.com/p/everyone-launched-an-agent-here-s-what-to-pilot

Quantum technologies: the Trend and Why it Matters - McKinsey

In 2026, quantum remains in the early stages of deployment, with maturity varying by domain. Quantum computing still attracts the most investment and research attention, but most business use cases remain experimental, and today’s systems have not yet shown an advantage over classical computing for practical problems. Quantum communication is closer to enterprise rollout, driven by the threat of “Q-Day”—when quantum computers will succeed in factoring exceptionally large numbers, undermining the math on which common public-key cryptography depends (for more, see Cybersecurity and trustworthy systems). With Q-Day expected in the coming years, the US Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finalized its first three postquantum encryption standards in 2024 and has encouraged organizations to begin migration planning.[1] Quantum sensing is also close to field deployment in selected use cases because it relies more on precision engineering and integration than on large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers, which are currently still under development.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/tech-and-ai/our-insights/the-top-trends-in-tech

The Cure To AI Is More Learning (With AI) - Panos Siozos, Forbes

From basic biological principles, learning is an adaptation mechanism. Fire burns, and you know not to do that again. It’s what allows you to adapt faster than your genes can encode. But now that AI is finding its way into almost every system we use, I wonder whether the fire is burning so fast we don’t even notice we've been burned. What happens when it burns even faster? Many people say we’re still in the dial-up era of AI, yet it's become a basic requirement for most jobs with an internet connection. I think that’s right. You do need to know how to use AI, but setting that as your bar is wrong. Fluency in one model today will be irrelevant in six months, maybe less. Instead, recruiters, L&D teams and job hunters need to be looking for something else. AI fluency shouldn’t be the bar. Adaptability should. You need to start looking for the metacognitive abilities that will help you and your company keep up with technology.

https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2026/07/17/the-cure-to-ai-is-more-learning-with-ai/

[DEC Leadership Summit Americas] What Comes After AI Experimentation? - Digital Education Council

Higher education institutions across the Americas are not short of AI activity. Faculty are experimenting, new tools are appearing across institutional functions while pilots are producing promising results. What many institutions still lack is a clear way of connecting that activity. That challenge framed the DEC Leadership Summit Americas, held at Columbia University in New York on 12 September 2026. Leaders from across North and Latin America examined what it takes to move from experimentation towards a coherent institutional approach. Most institutions represented at the Summit remain in the earlier stages of AI adoption. In DEC’s pre-Summit survey, only 11% had reached the scaling stage. Yet activity is already widespread. Faculty experiment with assessment, administrative teams adopt new tools, and students change how they work before guidance catches up.

https://www.digitaleducationcouncil.com/dec-insights/dec-leadership-summit-americas-what-comes-after-ai-experimentation

University of Phoenix study finds GenAI use among online adult learners associated with academic performance and technology confidence - University of Phoenix

University of Phoenix scholars have published new peer-reviewed research examining how non-traditional undergraduate students use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in online higher education. The study found that more frequent GenAI use was significantly associated with higher academic performance and stronger confidence in technology skills, while lower confidence in reading, writing and math and greater time demands from work, study or family responsibilities did not significantly predict use.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1145185

Tech leaders to UN: For the sake of humanity, please control the AI technology we created - SETH BORENSTEIN and JENNIFER PELTZ, AP News

The heads of major artificial intelligence firms pleaded with the United Nations on Wednesday to save the world or at least its people — by somehow regulating the fast-expanding technology that they have been designing. “If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole,” said Dario Amodei, chief executive officer of Anthropic. And from his competitor Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, came this assessment: “We could lose control of the future to AI.” Both said the countries of the world, through the U.N. Security Council, where they testified Wednesday, have to set safeguards of some kind to prevent the technology from getting too powerful to rein in. They also called for the world to make sure that the power of AI isn’t concentrated in one company or country.

https://apnews.com/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-un-security-council-64519ea66b38e2600026f4481ad7f211

Senior at UH Downtown prevails after being accused of handing in assignments that were AI generated - Randy Wallace, Fox 26 Houston

Mark Pieterson, a senior studying business management, said he was shocked after receiving an "F" in a music appreciation course. His professor accused him of submitting journal entries and discussion posts that were copied and generated by AI. After losing appeals to the professor and department chair, a student discipline committee ruled in Pieterson’s favor, citing concerns about the evidence’s reliability and consistency.  The appeal process started with the professor who accused him in the first place, so Mark was denied. Then he lost in the second phase with the department chair of the Arts and Communication Department.  But the student discipline committee made up of four deans ruled in his favor.  "The committees decision was based on concerns regarding the reliability and consistency of the evidence used to support the original finding." "This came as a huge relief," Mark said. "Also, it showed me that if you have the truth on your side, everything comes together."

https://www.fox26houston.com/news/senior-uh-downtown-prevails-after-being-accused-handing-assignments-were-ai-generated

Google Takes the A.I. Data Center Race to Outer Space - Cate Conger and Cade Metz, NY Times

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman and others have pledged support for orbital data centers, but the idea faces many challenges, including withstanding radiation in space and the costs of getting machines beyond the atmosphere. Yet as data centers grapple with terrestrial opposition and physical limits, having computing facilities float above Earth has become increasingly attractive. To be clear, Google is not sending up a full data center — only an experimental precursor to one. MVP contains four specialized computer chips called “tensor processing units,” which have the computing power of one server in a data center. The satellite’s solar panels will supply only about one kilowatt of power — roughly the amount needed to run a hair dryer — to the chips.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/technology/google-suncatcher-ai-data-center-space.html?unlocked_article_code=1.DlE.Lftw.GHFsqT_D9jLr&smid=nytcore-android-share

How Higher Ed Institutions Can Control AI Spending Without Curbing Innovation - Nathan Eddy, EdTech

Universities are expanding access to generative artificial intelligence just as vendors are starting to shift more services from predictable per-user subscriptions to consumption-based pricing. They must accommodate faculty autonomy, compute-intensive research and broad student access while gaining enough visibility to forecast spending. As AI use expands, inefficient prompting, repeated agentic workflows and automatic use of premium models can become unpredictable operating expenses spread across academic departments, research programs and administrative units. Institutions are responding with different combinations of approved tools, access controls and campuswide coordination.

https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/09/how-higher-ed-institutions-can-control-ai-spending-without-curbing-innovation