Should you use AI for a task? Here’s a simple way to decide [ Bruce Schneier ]

"I teach public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Munk School at the University of Toronto. And it will come as no surprise to you that my students regularly use AI to complete their writing assignments. Doing so is a waste of their tuition money. But if their entire career is going to include AI writing assistants, why shouldn’t they embrace their future?

The best way I’ve found to explain the dilemma comes from the AI researcher Daniel Meissler: it’s the difference between work and the gym.

At work, if your job is to move a bunch of heavy things from one side of the room to another, you should use whatever assistive tech you have on hand: a wagon, a forklift ... even an AI-powered robot. But at the gym, it makes no sense for that robot to lift weights for you. The point of weightlifting isn’t to move heavy things across the room; it’s to actually lift those heavy things.

The same analysis holds for any task an AI can do for you. If it’s work – if the task has to be done and no one cares how – then it’s fine to use AI assistance. But if the task is more like the gym, and how the task is done is at least as important, then it probably doesn’t make sense to use AI.

This, of course, assumes that the AI is actually up for the task and that it’s trustworthy: that it can do the job well, that its mistakes are minimal and correctable, that it’s been secured from cyber-attacks that would influence its results. Those are all important, and shouldn’t be minimized. There’s no point giving an AI something that it can’t do reliably. But once you’re confident that the AI can perform the task, the work v gym distinction helps you decide if it should.

The writing assignments I give my students are gym tasks, not work tasks. I ask them to write policy memos not because the world needs more policy memos. I assign them because the very act of writing, which includes thinking and outlining and drafting and editing, making and criticizing and revising arguments, will help develop the critical thinking skills they will need in their future careers. And without this constant mental exercise, those skills will atrophy. Employers are already noticing. . . ."    

--Bruce Schneier in The Guardian

Tracking Trump's Crackdown on Higher Education [ U.S. News & World Report ]

Here's a look at the key areas of Trump’s agenda and some of the noteworthy moves he has made when it comes to higher education. . . .     

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/trumps-higher-education-crackdown-visa-
revocations-dei-bans-lawsuits-and-funding-cuts

The ‘Fraud Squad’ at Caltech Will Catch You if You Lie on Your Application [ WSJ ]

The flava:

At California Institute of Technology, a little-known band of admissions officials is scrutinizing the fonts on science-fair certificates, checking addresses on high-school transcripts and analyzing signatures on awards.

Known as the “fraud squad,” these investigators are in charge of vetting applications to the highly selective STEM-focused school, which admitted less than 4% of its 11,400 applicants for the incoming class. Caltech created the team two years ago partly in response to a rising number of anonymous accusations of dishonest submissions.

The four-person team inspects every admitted student’s application, taking nothing for granted. They scour the internet to confirm obscurities, contact competition officials and high-school counselors and use a video-interview program to suss out students’ research claims.

At elite colleges such as Caltech, admissions have become more competitive and applications are increasingly complex. Some request long lists of accolades—research, competitions, awards and independent projects—that colleges can find harder to verify than grades and test scores.

At the same time, technology like artificial intelligence makes it easier to falsify submissions. And for young people, the stakes often feel higher than ever. . . .     

The article:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/college-admissions-caltech-cheating-fraud-squad-f7627aab

Monty Roberts, Horse Trainer Who Preached Kindness, Dies at 91 [ NYTimes ]

The flava:

. . .  His father, a horse trainer, was a proponent of conventional horse-breaking techniques that employed fear and punishment to bring a young mustang into submission.

Early in his life, Mr. Roberts recounted in his 1996 autobiography, “The Man Who Listens to Horses,” he recoiled at those methods. When he was just 7, he showed his father how effective it was to treat a young stallion with kindness to instill trust.

His father, he said, flew into a rage and beat him so severely with a chain that he had to be hospitalized. He vowed never to share his unconventional ideas with his father again. But he remained convinced that there was a better way to work with horses.

When he was 13, he went out to the high desert in northern Nevada alone and spent days observing herds of wild horses. He watched as the dominant mare used body language and visual cues to control young stallions. This nonverbal communication astounded him.

“In time, I would grasp just how exact a language it was,” he wrote. “There were precise messages, whole phrases and sentences that always meant the same thing, always had the same effect.”

He realized, he added, that “if I understood how to do it, I could effectively cross over the boundary between human (the ultimate fight animal) and horse (the flight animal).”

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/sports/monty-roberts-dead.html

Beneath the Tower | 60 Years Later [ KVUE ]

AI: The AI Detection Tool Arms Race [ NPR ]

Students used AI on Midterm [ Jason Gibson ]

@iamjasongibson I can’t make this stuff up. #professor #highereducation #college #midterm ♬ Piano famous song Chopin Deep deep clear beauty - RYOpianoforte

Facing political attack and falling enrollment, colleges take the fight to … each other [ The Hechinger Report ]

The flava:

It seemed like a win-win: a proposal to let community colleges in Illinois award bachelor’s degrees in certain subjects to rural residents and working adults who live beyond commuting distance of four-year universities.

The change would not only make things “easier and more affordable for students,” according to backers including Gov. JB Pritzker; it would increase the supply of workers with the skills employers need. 

But four-year universities lined up against it. And a political ally, flanked by several of their presidents, was blunt about why: It would cut into their business. . . .     

The article:

https://hechingerreport.org/under-political-attack-and-with-enrollment-falling-colleges-take-the-fight-to-each-other/

India’s Education Minister Steps Down, Handing Win to Protesters [ NYTimes ]

The flava:

India’s education minister stepped down on Saturday, in a major victory for a student protest movement whose explosive rise has become one of the most serious challenges in years to the power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, submitted his resignation to Mr. Modi, bowing to weeks of public pressure that culminated in nationwide street protests from Delhi and Mumbai to Kolkata and Chennai.

Mr. Pradhan said he had been “deeply pained” by the events of recent days, but he pointed a finger at what he called “anti-national forces,” saying he did not want them to take advantage of the massive protests.

The movement emerged in May, powered by widespread anger and frustration after the government ordered millions of students to retake an extremely competitive national medical school entrance exam because test questions had been leaked. Students held Mr. Pradhan, under whose watch several national exams were marred by leaks, responsible.

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/25/world/asia/india-education-minister-resigns-cockroach-protests.html

Colleges Promise ‘Business as Usual’ on Middle East Campuses Despite War [ NYTimes ]

The flava:

The Middle East campuses of American universities are expecting — or perhaps just hoping — to be open for classes as usual for the coming semester, even as the United States’ conflict with Iran poses new risks in the region.

Some American schools have long run programs in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The war, however, meant that students spent much of the spring semester enduring shutdowns, evacuations, online courses and other emergency measures. But the unraveling of the cease-fire between Washington and Tehran is not yet curbing universities’ ambitions to teach as they ordinarily would in the Middle East.

The University of New Haven is still planning to inaugurate its new campus in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, though probably without some faculty members it intended to send from the United States.

“The word in Saudi is that students are going to school and it’s business as usual,” Jens Frederiksen, New Haven’s president, said in an interview. “We’re proceeding with the launch.”

For American universities, campuses in wealthy Persian Gulf states can offer new revenue and welcome clout. Those perks, though, come with sporadic political headaches at home, reputational perils and regional safety concerns. After a strike on a physics building at a university in Tehran, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps warned in March that “American universities in the West Asia region are legitimate targets for us.”

The article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/us/middle-east-campuses-american-universities.html