Michael Webb's Blog

AI, Education, Creativity and Society.

  • Engineering Responsible AI: foundations for environmentally sustainable AI

    You might well have seen news on the National Engineering Policy Centre’s report: ‘Engineering Responsible AI: foundations for environmentally sustainable AI’ The report is an excellent one. There is so much misinformation in this area, so it’s refreshing to see a measured report, focusing on opportunities. The report is pretty readable, other than the dreaded…

  • Lessons from Seattle

    We’ve always stressed the importance of looking beyond your immediate environment to understand what others are doing with AI—in education, industry, and the public sector. So I was really pleased to be invited on a Taith -funded study trip to Seattle, along with leaders from colleges in Wales and Qualifications Wales, organised by ColegauCymru |…

  • Two stories on AI and copyright

    A bit on copyright. There have been two different stories in the news relating to copyright and AI this week. The first, about a petition now signed by over 20,000 musicians and writers that argues: “The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the…

  • Prosopagnosia and not recognising people

    Ok, a slightly personal post. I’m partly sharing because writing is my way of thinking things through, but also maybe it’s of interest too. I tend to avoid social events around conferences, for reasons that will soon become clear, but this week, I stepped out of my comfort zone and joined a conference dinner. In…

  • AI, sustainability and copyright

    A few words on terminology A short Friday morning thought on language and terminology. We’ve got a bit of a problem in AI with the terms AI and generative AI getting merged. Nine times out ten now I’d say that when I see people talking about AI they are really talking about just Gen AI.…

  • Malicious LLM Applications

    It’s a lovely sunny morning here in south Wales, a perfect time take a look at a pre-print paper covering some of the darker uses of LLMs: “Malla: Demystifying Real-world Large Language Model Integrated Malicious Services“ So what’s a Malla? I don’t think it’s caught on yet, but ‘Malicious LLM Applications’. They’ve got names like…

  • The first ‘teacher-less’ classroom

    I guess a lot of you have seen the news stories about the first ‘teacher-less’ classroom. Here’s the Sky news article and here’s the actually description of the course. Some things to note: * It’s £27,000 a year* 3 ‘learning coaches’ support groups of 20 students.* The ‘learning coach’ mentioned was an-ex teacher.* The students…

  • What is AI Sovereignty and why does it matter for education?

    The phrases ‘Data Sovereignty’, ‘Digital Sovereignty’, and ‘AI Sovereignty’ are coming up more and more, so I thought it would be useful to try to unpack them, and understand why they matter.  The terms sound similar, but I’d argue that they are in fact, quite different, with very different concerns. Data Sovereignty is concerned with control…

  • AI Music Generation

    I’m just catching up on some of the hyped AI apps from the last week or so. One that’s got a lot of attention is music generator Udio. I’ve had a quick play with it, and it’s fun and easy to use. I think the results are perfectly serviceable for some use cases. Basic music…