The Download: OpenAI’s data disaster, and screens in schools
OpenAI has just over a week to comply with European data protection laws following a temporary ban in Italy, and a slew of investigations in other EU countries. If it fails, it could face hefty fines, be forced to delete data, or even be banned.
But experts have told MIT Technology Review that it will be next to impossible for OpenAI to comply with the rules. That’s because of the way data used to train its AI models has been collected: by hoovering up content off the internet. Read the full story.
—Melissa Heikkilä
How to teach kids who flip between book and screen
Since the pandemic closed schools in 2020, nearly all students have been learning on school-issued laptops or tablets. But many experts suspect that the technology may be changing how they read, as reading on a screen is fundamentally different from reading on the page.
Researchers who study young readers’ brains and behaviors are eager to understand exactly where tech serves kids’ progress in reading and where it may stand in the way. The questions are still so new that the answers are often unclear.
Educators who are more dependent than ever on digital tech to aid learning often have little or no guidance on how to balance screens and paper books. In a lot of ways, each teacher is winging it. Read the full story.
