ChatEDU – The AI & Education Podcast

In this episode of ChatEDU, "A Good Week for Jevons Paradox," Matt and Liz kick it off with a dramatic reading of leaked text messages between Sam Altman and Mira Murati. The hosts discuss the high-stakes drama surrounding OpenAI, including Murati's testimony regarding Altman's honesty and the chaotic events leading up to his brief firing, which they jokingly refer to as "the blip."

The Rundown

Matt and Liz engage in a spirited discussion about the Brisk Chrome extension and its integration with Gemini, questioning if "wrapper" tools add true value for educators.

An examination of how Arizona State University repurposed faculty lectures into "AI slop" snippets without professor consent, leading to a significant backlash.

A look at the $17 million deal with OpenAI that is facing resistance from faculty and students who feel like "test rats" due to a lack of guidance.

A study from Cornell and Carnegie Mellon reveals that while lower-income students use AI more for essays, they face higher rejection rates than wealthier peers.

New research highlights a sixfold increase in fabricated academic citations in research papers, signaling a shift toward superficial AI box-checking in academia.

Mike Dunn, principal at Granby High School, shares a cautionary tale of a "complexity ceiling" where Gemini hallucinated teacher data during a scheduling task.

The Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund announces $1.9 million in grants to youth-led organizations focused on digital safety and AI ethics.

A three-part look at digital bans, featuring Richard Culatta’s warning against banning edtech, Arana Shapiro’s critique of "chocolate-covered broccoli" learning, and a report on surging library checkouts in Dallas.

The Beneath the Surface

The hosts explore Jevon’s Paradox, an economic theory from the 1860s which suggests that as technology makes a resource more efficient, the overall consumption of that resource actually increases. They apply this theory to the "AI Jobpocalypse" predictions and conduct a thought experiment on how increased efficiency in education might lead to higher demands on teachers and students rather than less work.

The Bright Byte

The episode concludes with a fascinating look at how NASA is utilizing AI to identify true planets among hundreds of thousands of simulated astrophysical events, successfully distinguishing them from false positives.

Announcements

Purchase Learning They'll Love - Dr. Elizabeth Radday. Amazon - https://tinyurl.com/22t9hz77

Check out our middle / high school Student AI Literacy course - ​​⁠⁠⁠www.skills21.org/ai/learnai⁠⁠⁠ 

Explore Skills21’s FREE social media literacy curriculum - ⁠⁠⁠https://www.skills21.org/social-balance⁠⁠⁠

Address Screen Time concerns - ⁠skills21.org/ai/screenshift⁠ 

Sponsors

Nectir. Welcome to the Classroom of the Future. https://www.nectir.io/

Links

OpenAI's Former CTO Testifies Against Sam Altman
https://tinyurl.com/bdcpdb6z

ASU AI Tool Uses Professors' Lectures Without Their Knowledge
https://tinyurl.com/3ejhtepk

Some Cal State Students and Faculty Reject OpenAI Deal
https://tinyurl.com/yc7sjwx6

Low-Income Students More Likely to Use AI for Admissions Essays
https://tinyurl.com/5e5ej5xe

AI-Hallucinated Citations Increasingly Appearing in Research Papers
https://tinyurl.com/yc2auunh

Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund Grants $1.9M to Third Cohort
https://tinyurl.com/3f6ebxvc

States Expanding School Device Bans Beyond Phones
https://tinyurl.com/y4vppwcu

The Real Problem Isn't Screens, It's Disengaged Learning
https://tinyurl.com/2wxzfxuh

School Library Checkouts Rise Amid Phone Bans
https://tinyurl.com/3pdy3dak

Dario Amodei Changes Tune on AI White-Collar Job Losses
https://tinyurl.com/22c6wu78

Why the A.I. Job Apocalypse (Probably) Won’t Happen
https://tinyurl.com/3fsbpjvh

AI Discovers 100+ Hidden Planets in NASA Data
https://tinyurl.com/yw8ac8bj

In this ChatEDU Check-In: Measuring Durable Skills with Vantage, Matt explores the development of a controlled assessment environment designed to measure critical thinking and collaboration through AI simulations. This experimental platform places students into diverse missions, such as investigating advertising truth or planning environmental events, to turn abstract human skills into measurable data points.

Key Takeaways:
Vantage uses real-time conversations with AI teams to assess durable skills like creativity and problem solving within a simulated environment.

The platform is designed to integrate into existing curricula for subjects like science and history, acting as a skills layer over traditional academic tasks.

Research conducted with NYU suggests that AI-driven scoring for these complex tasks is now as accurate as human expert ratings.

Matt’s Two Cents: The ability of large language models to create interactive, scalable assessment environments is a significant breakthrough for future readiness. Platforms like Vantage offer a glimpse into how schools can finally quantify essential human skills that were previously difficult to measure, mirroring the direction of international assessments like PISA.

Article:
Towards developing future-ready skills with generative A
https://bit.ly/3R6IJbI

In this ChatEDU Check-In: YouTube Unchained at School, Matt explores the pervasive and often problematic reliance on YouTube within K:12 classrooms. He discusses how school issued devices have become gateways to an infinite scroll of entertainment and non educational content.

Key Takeaways:
Schools are heavily dependent on YouTube for instruction, which frequently exposes students to inappropriate content and algorithmic distractions on school devices.

Internal documents suggest Google strategically targeted the K:12 market to close the viewing gap between school days and weekends, fostering lifelong brand loyalty.

Neuroscientific research indicates that early and heavy digital tool usage may hinder the development of essential neural networks for attention and language processing.

Matt’s Two Cents: District leaders should take this moment to be proactive rather than waiting for restrictive screen time bans to be imposed by legislation. It is a critical time to conduct network traffic audits, student shadows, and curriculum reviews to establish a baseline for how technology is actually being used in the classroom.

Article:
How YouTube Took Over the American Classroom
https://bit.ly/4dfvQn4

In this episode of ChatEDU The AI Paradox: Banning Phones While Embracing Bots, Matt and Liz open with "Goblingate”, how OpenAI had to intervene after ChatGPT developed a fixation on goblins, gremlins, and ogres during coding sessions, with mentions spiking 4,000%.

The Rundown

Workspace admins can now enable public link sharing for Gemini chats, allowing histories to be viewed without a Google account.

A new Android feature that uses LLM intent to automate recurring prompts like news digests or vocab builders.

Google is developing a feature to anticipate user needs by delivering context aware suggestions based on real time on device activity.

An update that automatically categorizes sources into labeled buckets once a notebook exceeds five items.

A new "institutional memory" layer for Gemini that connects Gmail, Docs, and Drive to automate tasks like scheduling and deck building.

Families of shooting victims in British Columbia are suing OpenAI for negligence, alleging the company failed to report a suspect’s violent chat logs.

Bipartisan U.S. lawmakers have introduced bills requiring "family accounts" for AI tools, including parental monitoring and time limits.

Analysis of a million chats shows AI often "people pleases" in relationship and spiritual domains, though newer models have halved these rates through stress testing.

A Fed study provides institutional evidence linking ChatGPT to a 50% drop in job growth for programming intensive sectors.

Some companies are finding AI infrastructure costs exceed the human salaries they replaced.

A coding agent using Claude Opus 4.6 via Cursor accidentally deleted a company’s entire production database and backups in nine seconds.

Tech firms are rehiring developers after finding that AI generated code shows 1.7 times more errors and requires expert oversight.

Research reveals a "positive feedback bias" where AI provides praise to Black students but withholds the critical rigor given to white students.

The Beneath the Surface

Matt and Liz examine the tension between school cell phone bans and AI literacy, drawing on an interview with Michael Horn to argue that school model, not the tool, determines success. They call for curriculum coherence to ensure AI supports rigorous learning rather than “cognitive offloading”.

The Bright Byte

Matt and Liz explore nuclear fusion's future, highlighting Microsoft's contract with startup Helion for commercial fusion power by 2028, a potentially AI-accelerated breakthrough that could provide clean energy for large-scale AI data centers.

Announcements

Purchase Learning They'll Love - Dr. Elizabeth Radday. Amazon - https://tinyurl.com/22t9hz77

Check out our middle / high school Student AI Literacy course - ​​⁠⁠⁠www.skills21.org/ai/learnai⁠⁠⁠ 

Explore Skills21’s FREE social media literacy curriculum - ⁠⁠⁠https://www.skills21.org/social-balance⁠⁠⁠

Register for the Spring AI Conference (5.1.26) in Litchfield, CT - ⁠https://www.skills21.org/event-details/ai-in-education-spring-2026-conference⁠

Address Screen Time concerns - ⁠skills21.org/ai/screenshift⁠

Sponsor

Nectir. Welcome to the Classroom of the Future. https://www.nectir.io/

Links

OpenAI Intervenes After ChatGPT Develops Goblin Obsession
https://tinyurl.com/bd3x78u4

Gemini Scheduled Actions: A Standout Android Automation Tool
https://tinyurl.com/4aj7xvc6

First Look: Google's Proactive Assistance Feature for Gemini
https://tinyurl.com/29n6b9ya

NotebookLM Gets Smarter About Sources
https://tinyurl.com/45k6293z

Google Adds Workspace Intelligence to Gemini
https://tinyurl.com/2w3t25ur

Families Sue OpenAI Over Shooting Suspect's ChatGPT Use
https://tinyurl.com/5h6hd8c8

Lawmakers Target AI Chatbots and Fraud in New Bills
https://tinyurl.com/bysd75js

How people ask Claude for personal guidance
https://tinyurl.com/56tu8yx2

In this ChatEDU Check-In: AI Use Appears to Have a 'Boiling Frog' Effect on Human Cognition, Liz explores the potential cognitive costs of outsourcing reasoning tasks to artificial intelligence. The episode examines a study suggesting that brief reliance on AI can lead to immediate performance drops and a decreased willingness to tackle challenges once the tool is removed.

Key Takeaways: 
Relying on AI for reasoning can lead to a rapid decline in independent performance once digital assistance is withdrawn.

Outsource mental labor creates a psychological dependency that erodes persistence and makes basic problem solving feel insurmountable.

The cumulative effect of AI assistance may result in a hidden loss of cognitive skills and self-belief that is difficult to reverse.

Liz’s Two Cents: While the study highlights valid concerns regarding cognitive dependency, the results may reflect the impact of sudden disruption rather than long term intellectual decay. District leaders should focus on how intrinsic motivation and task engagement influence persistence, while remaining cautious about longitudinal effects that are not yet fully supported by data.

Article:
AI Use Appears to Have a “Boiling Frog” Effect on Human Cognition, New Study Warns
https://bit.ly/4tHCpG8