This Week's News: DTU Opens Up to AI in Teaching

In this week’s newsletter we focus on the fact that students at DTU will, going forward, work with artificial intelligence as part of teaching and for use in examinations. At the same time, Italians are nervous about ChatGPT and believe that OpenAI collects users’ data and subsequently trains its language model on it (and thus breaches the GDPR). They have therefore asked OpenAI to account for this within 30 days. 

On Thursday we also published an article about misinformation and disinformation, with concern about how it will affect a number of upcoming elections around the world.

DTU opens up to artificial intelligence in teaching

Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU) (the Technical University of Denmark) has announced that artificial intelligence will be integrated into teaching and examination processes from 2024. This also includes language models such as ChatGPT. 

The university writes that this is part of an ambition to harness natural and technical sciences for the benefit of society, and that they aim to offer leading engineering programmes in Europe. To this end, they will adapt teaching methods and exam questions and use artificial intelligence more systematically in courses and research. 

The university has developed a set of guidelines for the ethical use of AI with a focus on academic integrity. These guidelines encourage students to use AI responsibly, including proper citation in their submissions.

University will use artificial intelligence in teaching | News | DR

Artificial intelligence will be incorporated very systematically into teaching at Danmarks Tekniske Universitet (DTU).

DRBirgitte Skovlund Asmussen

DTU opens up to the use of artificial intelligence in teaching

Artificial intelligence – AI – is part of engineers’ field of work and is to be incorporated more systematically into teaching and, in the longer term, examinations at DTU.

Monday 29 January 2024 Peter Aagaard Brixen

Exams with open internet and artificial intelligence

Lecturers at DTU are gaining experience with the use of artificial intelligence in teaching and in examinations.

Monday 29 January 2024 Peter Aagaard Brixen

Italy’s data protection authority claims that ChatGPT breaches GDPR

Italy’s Data Protection Authority, Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, has officially notified OpenAI that it has found violations of data protection law. Last year, ChatGPT was blocked for four weeks because the authority had privacy concerns, something OpenAI “corrected or clarified”. In that context, the authority launched a “fact-finding activity”, which now claims to have found infringements of the GDPR.

According to the BBC, the violations relate to the mass collection of users’ data, which is then used to train the algorithm. They are also concerned that younger users may be exposed to inappropriate content.

OpenAI has 30 days to respond to these allegations and explain its side of the story.

In its final decision in the case, the Italian data protection authority will take into account the ongoing work within the special working group set up by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).

ChatGPT breaches the GDPR, according to Italy’s data protection authority | Version2

The breaches reportedly concern the mass collection of user data to train the algorithm, and the potential exposure of younger users to inappropriate content generated by ChatGPT.

Version2Lasse Skovgaard

New articles on Viden.AI: Disinformation

In 2024, at least 64 democratic elections are being held worldwide, but how will AI-generated texts and deepfakes affect these elections? 

We have explored this in a short article, and during our research we discovered a website designed to generate and spread disinformation for only 400 USD per month. We have been in contact with the creators of this site, who have given us important insight into this problem and raised a serious question: How many similar systems already exist out there, and what impact are they having on all the world’s democracies?

We are surprised that this topic is not receiving more attention. Perhaps the general public has not yet realised that artificial intelligence can be – and probably already is – misused.

The solution to meeting this challenge is to educate young people (indeed the entire population!) in digital technological literacy. How else can they navigate critically in the digitalised world we live in?

Ethical aspects of chatbots in education – misinformation and disinformation

When generative AI produces content, it does so at a speed, quality and volume we have not seen before, and it has become increasingly difficult for us to distinguish between content created by humans and that produced by generative AI. This challenge we will

Viden.AIPer Størup Lauridsen

We also recommend listening to Prompt’s latest episode. Taylor Swift deep fakes and OpenAI in bed with the Pentagon and Fox News.

One in three citizens: Artificial intelligence will harm political elections

Read more here.

Berlingske.dkPhoto: Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix

This week's news

Researcher: The pace of AI in schools should be slowed to avoid techno-panic | Radar

There is a need to recalibrate current discussions about AI and education, says an Australian professor behind a recent research article on the same topic. The views are supported by Danish peers.

RadarTania Andersen

Fake research is flooding academic journals

Read more here.

Berlingske.dkPhoto: Toby Melville/Reuters

A historical day for the AI Act - The AI Act reaches an important milestone politically - DI Digital

After a whirlwind negotiation in December, European member states finally approved the AI Act at the Coreper level, leaving it (almost) ready for its final destination.

Dansk Industri (Confederation of Danish Industry)

Digital literacy: It requires teaching in the digital – and breaks from it

Digital opportunities should be a natural part of life in upper secondary school (gymnasium), but there must also be breaks from the digital world. That is the starting point for digital life at Randers Statsskole.

Randers Amtsavis/ritzau/ and Mathias Mundbjerg matmujfm.dk

SDU deans: The myths about the humanities refuse to die – but reality tells a different story

The narrative of the humanities as producing perennial students and the unemployed does not reflect today's humanities programmes and students, write Lars Grassmé Binderup and Simon Møberg Torp.

Altinget logo

Artificial intelligence may challenge us more than the climate

Misinformation has become everyday life, and it would be naive to think that artificial intelligence (AI) does not play a role. But how will misinformation be further amplified with AI?

JP/Politikens Hus A/SStig Linstow Partner, Associated Consultants

Artificial intelligence should be a civil right

AI can make a huge positive difference in many areas and help especially vulnerable citizens who may not have the insight or resources to secure the best solution for themselves.

JP/Politikens Hus A/SNatasha Friis Saxberg CEO of IT-Branchen (the Danish ICT Industry Association)

Teachers are left alone with an enormous task: Union representatives call for action

Magasin6_Udsyn_Rebecca_TopbannerText_ Johan Rasmussen Photo_ Private

Majority of educators call for govt monitoring of AI development, use cases

This strong consensus indicated a widespread recognition of the potential risks and ethical considerations associated with AI, noted the report. This report is based on a survey of 6,313 educators, ranging from primary school and high school teachers, college professors and education professionals,…

Economic TimesPTI

Most Top News Sites Block AI Bots. Right-Wing Media Welcomes Them

Nearly 90 percent of top news outlets like ‘The New York Times’ now block AI data collection bots from OpenAI and others. Leading right-wing outlets like NewsMax and Breitbart mostly permit them.

WIREDCondé Nast

AI vision proposal to help set Denmark's direction - IT-Branchen

With five strong proposals, IT-Branchen sets out a clear direction in a new AI vision proposal for how Denmark can far more fully embrace AI and future technologies for the benefit of the whole country.

IT-BranchenRune Fick Hansen

We are facing the biggest technological revolution since electricity, says Ulrik Vestergaard: “It’s a light in the darkness”

Read more here.

Berlingske.dkKalle Kehlet

Nerd Corner

Meta launches Code Llama 70B

Meta has just released its language model focused on coding, which has 70 billion parameters. Meta itself calls it ‘the largest and best-performing model in the Code Llama family’. Before you download it, note that it is 131 GB and requires a powerful GPU to run, as well as plenty of RAM.

EvalPlus, an evaluation tool for testing code generation by large language models; here, Code Llama 70B scores 65.2, but considerably lower than GPT-4 (85.4).

You can test the model here without logging in:

Code Llama 70B | NVIDIA NGC

Code Llama is an LLM capable of generating code, and natural language about code, from both code and natural language prompts.

NVIDIA NGC Catalog

Meta Releases Code Generation Model Code Llama 70B, Nearing GPT-3.5 Performance

Code Llama 70B is Meta’s new code generation AI model. Thanks to its 70 billion parameters, it is “the largest and best-performing model in the Code Llama family”, Meta says.

InfoQSergio De Simone

Introducing Code Llama, a state-of-the-art large language model for coding

Code Llama, which is built on top of Llama 2, is free for research and commercial use.

This week’s recommendations

We recommend reading the journal Ledelse i morgen – on artificial intelligence in educational leadership. You can read the whole issue at the bottom of the page or click the headings below to go directly to the articles.

AI chatbot – now or never?
By Christian Aalborg Frandsen and Lars Due Arnov
This article looks at the advantages and disadvantages of AI chatbots and presents a range of pedagogical suggestions and ideas for how a school can get started working with AI.

Leadership and pedagogy with human freedom as the goal – technological understanding and digitalisation as the means
By Nikolaj Brandt Blæsild
The article addresses issues around technological understanding and digitalisation and the consequences for the formation (Bildung) perspectives in pedagogy and for children’s autonomy.

Digital technologies in school – It requires a certain balance as a leader
By Lillian Buus
This article considers how schools and leaders can relate to the many digital technologies currently pressing in. How can leaders support their teachers in using digital technologies in teaching? And are there particular issues leaders should pay special attention to?

Digital technological understanding – leading a new subject area in the Danish primary and lower secondary school (folkeskole)
By Jette Aabo Frydendahl, Karen Mikkelsen and Martin Thun Klausen
This article focuses on how, as a leadership team together with the pedagogical staff, you can create a shared language for capacity building around technological understanding in and as a subject, based on a reflective capacity model.

Blinde Vinkler: Are we getting better at learning with AI?

When ChatGPT was launched, teaching and examination methods in the education system became outdated overnight. Teachers tore their hair out trying to figure out how to avoid cheating with AI at hand. And fear of AI as a cheating tool is still keeping most schools from integrating AI into teaching. But shouldn’t we be getting skilled at using AI in the very world we are educating for?

Is AI, in fact, the solution for a school and education system that is under time and financial pressure? And how do we ensure that we maintain the social aspect of learning? 
 
Blinde Vinkler is produced by Ingeniørforeningen IDA (the Danish Society of Engineers, IDA) and IT-Branchen (the Danish IT Industry Association). Hosted by the tech journalist, Marie Høst. Guests: Sine Zambach, Assistant Professor at the Department of Digitalization at Copenhagen Business School.