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Submission + - OpenAI Named Lead Partner of 'Hour of AI' for K-12 Schoolkids Across the Globe

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: If you thought the announced AI moratoriums by the nation's two largest K-12 school districts (New York City & Los Angeles) might prompt the tech-backed nonprofit CodeAI to ease up on the K-12 AI accelerator, think again. On Monday, CodeAI unveiled a revamped website for December's Hour of AI, with OpenAI named as the Lead Partner for the event and Microsoft named as one of two 'Supporters' (the other being the aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman). In August, as it launched ChatGPT for Teens, OpenAI announced a signature partnership with Code.org to 'prepare the first AI generation', adding that 'through the Hour of AI, OpenAI and CodeAI will introduce millions of students to the basics of using AI thoughtfully and responsibly.'

At a Microsoft AI event in August 2025, Microsoft President Brad Smith called on Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi to "switch hats" from coding to AI, setting the stage for Partovi's announcement that the nonprofit would rename the Hour of Code — formerly the premier event for K-12 schoolchildren during CS Education Week since 2013 — to the Hour of AI in 2025 (a month earlier, Microsoft and OpenAI teamed up with the American Federation of Teachers to hatch a plan to 'bring AI into the classroom'). Later in 2025, Microsoft secured a 27% stake in OpenAI's new for-profit entity, which Reuters reported is now eyeing a $1.4 trillion valuation. In mid-2026, Code.org rebranded itself as CodeAI just ahead of the growing pushback against AI in K-12 schools.

The inside story of how Big Tech is applying the same playbook it used to scale coding lessons nationwide to now mainstream their AI tools in schools is at the heart of the new book Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools.

Submission + - The University of Washington at Microsoft

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: GeekWire reports that the University of Washington has moved its Global Innovation Exchange {GIX) program to Microsoft’s campus in a rent-free deal (UW News release). GIX, an institute supporting tech leaders that offers an MS in Technology Innovation, is the first UW program to set up full-time operations at Microsoft, whose headquarters are just across Lake Washington from the university’s main campus. Microsoft provided a $42 million in-kind donation to establish the embedded facility; the UW is leasing the new 48,500-square-foot GIX space in Microsoft’s Building 92 rent-free. GIX debuted in 2015 as a partnership of the UW and China's Tsinghua University and received $70 million in Microsoft support at the now-abandoned GIX location in Bellevue (the Steve Ballmer Building), although indications are that a long-term arrangement did not come together as intended.

In a Thursday LinkedIn post, Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote: "Last night we opened a door unlike any other. At the heart of Microsoft’s campus, step into the new home of the UW's Global Innovation Exchange (GIX) and you cross from Microsoft into the University of Washington. No one has ever put a great research university and a leading technology company under the same roof quite like this. As far as I know, no one has even tried. The timing matters. Artificial intelligence is advancing fast. The question is whether the people building it understand the world it’s changing. This calls for a new style of education and leadership. We need leaders who understand the technology deeply and see things through other people’s eyes. Leaders who learn by collaborating on real projects with people from different countries and disciplines. That’s what GIX is built for. Students will learn from faculty across the UW, take classes taught by Microsoft employees, and be mentored by people from across our industry here in the Pacific Northwest."

Interestingly, Smith's contention that UW GIX students will benefit from a 'new style' of Microsoft and industry-influenced education sounds a lot like Smith's contention that K-12 school children are better off thanks to a new style of Microsoft and industry-influenced education. In an interview last month, Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools author Natasha Singer told NPR (podcast, transcript), "For my book, I spoke to Brad Smith, who's the president of Microsoft, and he has been one of the leaders in the tech industry pushing for [K-12] computer science [and now AI literacy] in schools. [...] And Brad Smith said, philanthropy in the private sector is doing this work because public schools have failed to do what they were supposed to do. And his view is that public schools should be teaching modern subjects like computer science, and they were not equipped to do it fast enough and the tech industry stepped in to help. And is it better than if schools were able to do this themselves? He said, no, but it's certainly better than nothing. And he said to me, you know, think about where we would be on computer science if the tech industry hadn't stepped up. [...] Well, I've been having this conversation with him for 10 years, and when we started having it 10 years ago, I said to him, I get that, but when big tech companies put their finger on the scale, it tips education in certain ways that not only favor the tech industry but can obscure equally or more important things."

So, is 'The University of Washington at Microsoft' a good or bad idea?

Submission + - Too Big to Fail? What Happens if the AI Bubble Bursts

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Financial journalist Bethany McLean ponders What Happens if the A.I. Bubble Bursts (NYT, alt. source) in a NY Times op-ed. McLean, whose earlier reporting on Enron (YouTube) led to the downfall of the company and its auditor Arthur Andersen, begins:

It was about a year ago that Sarah Friar, the chief financial officer of OpenAI, said one way the company might sustain its current financial high-wire act was with a “backstop” or “guarantee” — as in, a government guarantee — “that allows the financing to happen.” Almost at the same time, Sam Altman, the company’s chief executive, said, “Given the magnitude of what I expect A.I.’s economic impact to look like,” the government should serve the role of “insurer of last resort.” They qualified those comments, but still, the gist seemed to be that the industry The Wall Street Journal calls “the biggest economic bet in U.S. history” is so important to the nation that if it needs more funding, taxpayers should be on the hook. Another way to put it is that the government should regard artificial intelligence the same way it regarded the banks in the 2008 financial crisis: too big to fail.

It’s hard to reconcile that suggestion with the other message blaring out of leading A.I. companies these days: that the technology “could kill us all by the end of the decade,” as the former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon recently warned, and must therefore be restrained. A.I. is so important that we can’t let it fail, but so risky that we shouldn’t let it go forward? Now add the conventional wisdom that the United States has to beat China at all costs (or as President Trump put it, “Whoever wins A.I. wins!”), and the arguments can start to reinforce one another. The more the race to dominate becomes existential, the more we have to spend on it; the more we spend on the industry, the more economically and geopolitically consequential it becomes; the more consequential it becomes, the greater the need to speed ahead, safety concerns be damned; the more we race ahead heedless, the more risk there is. All in all, it raises an even scarier possibility: What if rather than being too big to fail, A.I. is too big to stop?

She concludes:

This technology may be critical to the future of the United States, but preserving it doesn’t mean we have to bail out the private entities that are leading the field at this particular moment, nor does it mean we have to protect the fortunes of their investors and executives. The solution to the whole ever-expanding A.I. terror starts with remembering the lessons of the 2008 crisis: No company should be too big to fail.

Submission + - Put Multiple Values in One Cell with Lists and Arrays in Excel 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Folks in Finance and other power Excel users were no doubt all atwitter over Microsoft's Thursday announcement of support for in-cell lists and arrays in Excel, including four new functions — FLATTEN, HAS, HASANY, HASALL — to manipulate them. From the home office in Redmond:

"Throughout Excel's 40-year history, you've only been able to put one value per cell. In this announcement, we're excited to share how that's changing with the release of lists, arrays in cells, and nested arrays, initially to Microsoft Excel for Windows and Mac Beta Channels. Many workbooks already try to pack multiple values into one cell. A project might list 'Carlos, Henrietta, Jacob' as three owners, or a Forms survey might return '2:00 PM; 2:30 PM; 3:00 PM' as one response. With lists, you can keep those values in one cell, while also keeping them separate for filtering, calculation and more."

If you haven't been keeping abreast of What's New in Excel, Microsoft has added a number of new features over the past years that enable Excel users to do things one might formerly have turned to programming languages and other computing environments to accomplish, including support for regular expressions, the LET and LAMDA functions, Python in Excel, and, of course, the obligatory AI support.

Which raises an interesting question: Is an Excel formula worth a thousand lines of AI-generated Python code? (especially if the latter is run in an overengineered infrastructure, such as an AI-generated complex CI/CD pipeline combined with cloud pipeline execution!)

Comment Pinocchio Pleasure Island Business Model? (Score 4, Insightful) 119

Pinocchio (Pleasure Island): A mysterious Coachman hires Honest John to find disobedient and naughty boys for him to take to Pleasure Island, a notorious and infamous place. Honest John, despite the legal risks and the Coachman's implication of what happens to the boys, accepts the job out of fear, and finds Pinocchio, persuading him to take a vacation on Pleasure Island. On the way to the island, Pinocchio befriends Lampwick, a delinquent boy. At Pleasure Island, without rules or authority to enforce their activity, Pinocchio, Lampwick, and many other boys soon engage in vices such as vandalism, fighting, smoking and drinking. Jiminy eventually finds Pinocchio in a bar smoking and playing pool with Lampwick, and the two have a falling out after Pinocchio defends Lampwick for his actions. As Jiminy tries leaving Pleasure Island, he discovers that the island hides a horrible curse that transforms the boys into donkeys after making "jackasses" of themselves, and they are sold by the Coachman into slave labor.

Submission + - VC Firm Andreessen Horowitz Wants Teens to Skip College for Its New Academy

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "All of Silicon Valley seems to be coming together to launch a new alternative to college for teens dreaming of becoming the next big tech founder," writes Gizmodo's Bruce Gil about Silicon Valley’s latest attempt to reinvent college. "Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, announced Tuesday that applications are now open for the first class of the creatively named The Horowitz Andreessen Academy."

From A16Z News: "It’s a highly selective school in San Francisco for the most ambitious young builders after high school (or the first or second years of college) — giving them the skills, network, and real-world experiences to excel in a world being fundamentally re-shaped by AI. [...] The focus of The Academy is on building — which we believe is the most valuable thing humans can do to learn to become a productive, curious and happy adult. [...] There will be no traditional grades, tests, or homework. Instead, you’ll get to learn from Silicon Valley’s most storied founders and operators in short, high-impact classes and spend the rest of your time working and exploring. [..] We’re launching with 10 of the world’s most innovative companies as our Founding Partners: Anduril, Anthropic, Coinbase, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, and Stripe."

Applications are open for the Founding Class Fellowship, an inaugural one-year program which will begin in Fall of 2027 and be tuition-free (students are responsible for their own housing, meals, and personal living expenses). The Academy intends to seek regulatory approvals for a two-year program that it hopes to begin in Fall 2028. If approved, that program is expected to charge an annual tuition "similar to that of an elite private university." The Academy is a for-profit education company and is separate from the venture firm a16z.

Submission + - Bill Gates Gives Governors $650K to 'Guide K-12 Education Policy Related to AI'

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Among the latest round of grants from the [Bill] Gates Foundation is one for $650,000 to the National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices, the stated purpose of which is "to equip governors with knowledge and resources to guide K-12 education policy related to artificial intelligence."

The grant aligns nicely with the Gates Foundation's Monday announcement that it is betting big on AI to boost global health, agriculture and education, starting with a $1 billion "down payment", 40% of which is earmarked for education. It also comes amid a pushback against the use of AI in K-12 in schools, including moratoriums on K-12 generative AI use in the nation's two largest cities, New York City and Los Angeles.

If Gates' push for the nation's Governors to drive K-12 AI policy seems a bit familiar, it may be because Bill Gates was among the so-called CEOS for CS, a who's who of tech leaders whose Code.org-organized PR campaign led to the nation's Governors signing of a compact committing to expand K-12 CS education (including a CS graduation requirement) in their states at the NGA's Summer 2022 Meeting. Ironically, the massive post-COVID tech company layoffs soon followed and after that came the job-disrupting breakout of generative AI, which prompted the tech-backed nonprofit Code.org (who subsequently rebranded as CodeAI) to round up 250+ CEOs for another PR campaign in 2025, this time calling upon state education leaders and policymakers to pivot and further commit to making AI education available for every student as part of a push for 'policy solutions that ensure every student has access to the foundational skills needed to succeed in a world enabled by AI.'

As Yogi Berra might say, "It's déjà vu all over again!"

Comment Re:They always blame the wrong thing(s) (Score 2) 85

Yes, I had a younger brother whose middle school math teacher just matter-of-factly taught the kids BASIC programming using a lab of Apple IIs in the early 80s together with the normal math concepts she taught. Why it took hundreds of millions of dollars from tech companies, tech-backed recruitment and 'training' of 100,000+ teachers, billions in Federal grant money (Dept. of Ed and NSF), billions in spending by school districts on hardware and software, and massive PR efforts, and constant lobbying of federal and state government officials to enact K-12 CS legislation from 2013-2026 to accomplish what seems to be less than what some math and science and social studies teachers were able to accomplish in an ad hoc fashion on a shoestring budget some 30-40+ years earlier is a rea head-scratcher.

Submission + - Amazon Vine Review Recasts 'Coding Kids' Exposé as Learn-to-Code Primer for 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: "Amazon Vine," the e-tailer explains, "is an invitation-only program which selects the most insightful reviewers in the Amazon store to serve as Vine Voices. Vine Voices have the unique opportunity to order items free of charge and share their product experiences with Amazon customers to help them make informed buying decisions. [...] When customers see a review with the special Vine badge, they can trust that they're getting an honest, unbiased opinion from a real customer just like them."

So, how well does the reality live up to the promise? In the case of the new book Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools, not so much. Described by the publisher as "the inside story of how Big Tech catalyzed, co-opted, and ultimately came to capture computer science and AI education in America" ("Fourth graders doing Google-branded coding lessons. Amazon schooling seventh graders on its warehouse robots. Advanced Placement computing courses from Microsoft and Apple."), the top review selected by Amazon informs customers that the book is a 'good introduction to coding.'

"I really enjoyed Coding Kids," writes the 'trusted' Amazon Vine reviewer. "What stood out to me most was how the book takes something that can sound complicated—computer coding—and makes it feel approachable and even fun. As I was reading it, I found myself thinking that this is exactly the kind of book that could help a child become interested in technology without feeling overwhelmed by it. I particularly liked the way it encourages kids to be curious, experiment, and solve problems on their own. That was probably my favorite part because it shows that coding isn’t just about computers—it’s also about creativity and learning how to think differently. I would definitely recommend Coding Kids to parents, grandparents, or teachers looking for a good introduction to coding. I came away from the book thinking that it could genuinely spark a child’s interest in technology and give them the confidence to explore something new."

While likely just another example of Hanlon's Razor ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."), the recasting of an investigative nonfiction book that casts a critical eye at Amazon's influence on K-12 education as a learn-to-code primer for children doesn't exactly instill trust in the Amazon Vine program or Amazon's 'Top Reviews' selection process. More on-point book reviews of Coding Kids can be found at the Washington Independent Review of Books ("Turns out, Silicon Valley isn’t especially altruistic.") and Science ("Big Tech’s crusade to get kids coding is more self-interested than it first appears").

Comment Re:I'm kind of disappointed in the article (Score 1) 2

by theodp (#66332528) Attached to: Journalist Calls Out 'Collective Amnesia' of Schools' Romance with Big Tech

Can't do a book full justice in a brief Slashdot post, but she actually does go back and cover how Apple entered schools in the 80s in a chapter entitled 'From Tom Edison to Sam Altman.' She goes back even further into the history of tech and schools, including how Thomas Edison promised that movies would revolutionize education and replace textbooks - "They'll do all the teaching by moving pictures, all of it" he told the NY Times in 1912 - not unlike the current promises being made about AI.

Submission + - Journalist Calls Out 'Collective Amnesia' of Schools' Romance with Big Tech 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The74 reports that in her new book, Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools ("the inside story of how Big Tech catalyzed, co-opted, and ultimately came to capture computer science and AI education in America"), Natasha Singer, a veteran business reporter for The New York Times, traces Big Tech's bid to persuade schools to embrace their products, with industry-sponsored curricula and tools growing at astonishing speed.

In his book review of Coding Kids , Aran Shetterly begins with a Spoiler Alert: "Turns out, Silicon Valley isn’t especially altruistic." He writes, "At the center of her book is the story of the nonprofit Code.org and its charismatic, Harvard-educated leader, Hadi Partovi. Thirteen years ago, Partovi produced a five-minute video called “What Most Schools Don’t Teach.” This 'audacious act of Silicon Valley influencer marketing...aimed...at a low-resourced nonprofit sector: public schools serving millions of children,' delivered a worrying message: Kids who didn’t learn to write code would be left behind. And the long-term success of the United States economy depended on training these students to fill a million open tech jobs. [...] No word in Coding Kids chills more than 'democratize.' 'Democratizing' sounds a lot like 'democracy,' but the tech-elite byword has nothing to do with a form of government; from the lips of the tech barons, it means enforcing ubiquitous access to their products."

Fast-forward to 2026, and now we're dealing with AI, and tech is reading from a similar playbook. Asked by The74's Greg Toppo, "Does this moment seem different to you?", Singer replies, "This moment is different, but also similar. We are in a moment in society where a lot of people have increased distrust of these huge tech companies, and we see a wave of parents pushing back against tech in schools. [...] We have had these cycles of tech in schools where there are all these promises about the latest tech, laptops, learning apps, massive open online courses, virtual reality, big data's going to revolutionize schools and like democratize access to education for kids and get them these great career skills, and we keep having these cycles. My concern is that we don't learn anything. One of the reasons I wrote this book is because it feels like we have collective amnesia. Now we're in the sixth or eighth cycle of this — and shouldn't we be asking questions about the push for AI in schools, based on what we've learned about the push for all the other things that came before?"

Submission + - Los Angeles Public School System Bans Most AI for Students

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The Los Angeles public school system will vastly restrict the use of AI at all grade levels, reported the NY Times and others. The news of the ban — which oddly had to be coaxed out of LAUSD employees (YouTube) at a meeting of the LAUSD School Board Generative AI Ad Hoc Committee — stunningly came as a complete surprise to both the LAUSD Board and K-12 AI usage protestors (the employees were unable to answer a Board member's question about what LAUSD's policy was on schoolwork done using AI on students' personal devices). It comes shortly after New York City announced it would ban most AI through 8th grade. Both developments seem to respond to an extraordinary movement, driven by parents, to push back against the incursion of technology and screens into childhood. The new AI restrictions will apply for the current school year, as a board committee considers how to potentially incorporate the technology in the future.

For several years, the Times notes, debates over technology have roiled LAUSD, the nation’s second-largest, with over half a million students. Its former superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, was an AI booster who sought to develop the district’s own AI chatbot ("Ed") for students. But the small start-up company Carvalho selected to lead that project had little experience in generative AI, and its CEO was later indicted on charges that she had defrauded investors. Carvalho resigned from the district in June after the FBI searched his home and offices in a related investigation. Following his resignation, Carvalho was scrubbed from the Leadership page ("Visionaries driving our impact") of the tech-backed nonprofit CodeAI, where Carvalho was a Board member. CodeAI was known as Code.org until last June, when it rebranded itself as CodeAI in a pivot to AI literacy that was publicly encouraged by the leaders of its deep-pocketed tech giant corporate donors, including Microsoft President Brad Smith and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who pledged to help fund the move.

This week's AI moratorium announcement by LAUSD would seem to be a setback for Microsoft, who a year ago used LAUSD as its AI Poster Child as it boasted it was bringing AI literacy and skilling to students and educators across the US, including using its partnerships with Code.org and Code.org's TeachAI initiative to provide AI literacy and skilling for all of LAUD's 409,000 students. LAUSD was a big booster of Code.org's inaugural Hour of AI last December, which received funding from Microsoft and replaced the nonprofit's flagship Hour of Code event as the nonprofit pivoted to AI. It also seems a setback for CodeAI, as the LA and NYC AI moratoriums cast doubt over whether the nonprofit's new AI curriculum and flagship Hour of AI event will be welcome in the nation's two biggest school districts for at least the 2026-27 year (coincidentally, the NBA announced this week that CodeAI $10+ million donor Steve Ballmer is facing his own 2026-27 suspension!). Code.org and its tech partners rapidly gained traction for pushing coding into classrooms with its first Hour of Code in 2013, which was bolstered by high-profile announcements of Code.org partnerships with some of the nation's largest school districts, including New York City and Chicago. So, will the AI backlash slow their efforts to do the same with AI?

Submission + - NBA Suspends Steve Ballmer for 1 Year, Fines Clippers $30M for Salary-Cap Scheme

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: GeekWire reports, "The NBA dropped the hammer on Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer on Wednesday, suspending the former Microsoft CEO from all league and team activities for one year and fining the franchise $30 million following a year-long investigation into illegal salary-cap circumvention involving star forward Kawhi Leonard. The sweeping sanctions mark one of the most severe punitive actions taken against an owner in modern sports history. Beyond Ballmer’s ban and the team fine, the Clippers were stripped of five consecutive first-round draft picks (2029 through 2033), several team executives were suspended, and Leonard was ordered to pay $700,000 in restitution. Leonard’s uncle and advisor, Dennis Robertson, was also banned from league activity for five years."

"Central to what the NBA identified as a salary-cap evasion scheme was Aspiration, a green-banking tech startup that filed for bankruptcy after its co-founder pleaded guilty to a $248 million fraud. Shortly after signing Leonard to a $176 million contract extension in 2021, Ballmer personally poured $50 million into Aspiration, while the team landed a $300 million sponsorship deal and Leonard secured a multimillion-dollar endorsement contract with the firm."

Given today's events, looking prescient in retrospect is a 2014 Deadspin item that quipped, Steve Ballmer Practiced Being Owner With His Son's High School Team, which took note of a Seattle Times investigation into "incoming Clippers owner Steve Ballmer's foray into the shady world of high school prep sports and the wealthy parents living vicariously through their kids." Summarizing Ballmer's aggressive find-a-way-to-win maneuvers, Deadspin wrote, "Ballmer's son's basketball team at Lakeside School in Seattle [which Bill Gates once attended] sucked, and he wanted to make it un-suck. So he created a non-profit as a way to pump money and talent into the school, got friendly faces coaching positions, and pushed for an administration-wide commitment to athletics at the expense of academics. He was basically the owner of Lakeside basketball."

Submission + - AI Banned in NYC Elementary and Middle Schools

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The NY Times and others are reporting on a moratorium on student-facing generative AI use in schools, alongside a new screen time policy, a decision that will impact nearly 600,000 public school students, or two-thirds of the system's total enrollment. An announcement from the NYC Mayor's Office — Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels Put Students First with Nation’s Broadest Generative AI Moratorium in Schools — characterizes the policy as the most expansive student-facing AI moratorium in the nation

The new policy eliminates AI use for students in grades 2-K through 8th grade. This includes all software that uses student-facing generative AI. Companion chatbots will be prohibited across all grades. At the high school level, no more than 50,000 students in five limited pilots will be introduced to AI in general education courses. All high school students will also have access to twice-yearly AI literacy classes (two 45-minute modules) designed to help them think critically about AI before they begin to rely on it. Students in 2nd grade and below will see restricted 1:1 screen time, with recommended caps of 30 minutes a day for students in 3rd grade through 5th grade and 45 minutes for students in 6th grade through 8th grade.

“Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow. They need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with educators and wrestle with tough problems on their own,” said Mayor Mamdani. “The tech industry wants us to believe that A.I.-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We do not see it that way. That’s why we’re implementing a moratorium on generative AI for students in 2-K through 8th grade and spending the next year studying the impacts of this technology.”

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