AI Snake Oil
ai-in-education reading group
January-April 2025
Embedded Files
Welcome to the AI-in-Education Special Interest Group’s reading group on "AI Snake Oil" by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor. This group brings together educators, researchers, and practitioners interested in exploring the critical perspectives on AI presented in the book. Our goal is to deepen our understanding of AI’s implications in education and beyond, sharing insights and resources that emerge from our discussions.
Formed through the collaborative efforts of Josie, Marc, and Wiebke, our group consists of around 80 members who engage actively in scheduled sessions to exchange ideas and experiences. Please note, our meetings are intended for live participation and interaction, as sessions will not be recorded. This ensures open and candid discussions that stay within the group, fostering a safe space for all members to express their thoughts freely.
We encourage everyone to share materials and insights during our meetings, which we will then curate and add here. This page serves as a dynamic repository to support our collective learning journey. Thank you for joining us in this engaging exploration of AI's role and impact in educational contexts.
All meetings occur at 15:00 ET on Zoom.
01/30/25 Meeting 1
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: How Predictive AI Goes Wrong
02/20/25 Meeting 2
Chapter Three: Why Can't AI Predict the Future?
Chapter Four: The Long Road to Generative AI
03/13/25 Meeting 3
Chapter Five: Is Advanced AI an Existential Threat?
Chapter Six: Why Can't AI Fix Social Media?
04/03/25 Meeting 4
Chapter Seven: Why Do Myths about AI Persist?
Chapter Eight: Where Do We Go from Here?
Reading Group Book
Resources shared, 01/30/25
Below are resources shared during our first session. This collection serves as a convenient repository of shared resources and is not intended as an endorsement or promotion.
Books:
Weapons of Math Destruction (2021), by Cathy O'Neil
Teaching with AI (2024), by José Bowen and C. Edward Watson
Superminds: The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together (2018), by Thomas Malone
We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite (2024), by Musa al-Gharbi
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (2017), Adrienne Maree Brown
Metaphors of Internet: Ways of Being in the Age of Ubiquity (2020), by Annette N. Markham (Volume editor)Katrin Tiidenberg (Volume editor)
Brave New Words (2024), by Salman Khan
The Atomic Human: What Makes Us Unique in the Age of AI (2024), by Neil D. Lawrence
Articles:
Assistant, Parrot, or Colonizing Loudspeaker? ChatGPT Metaphors for Developing Critical AI Literacies (2024) by Gupta, tef, Mills, Bali
Podcasts and blogs:
Digital Redlining and Privacy (2016), Teaching in Higher Ed, Chris Gilliard
Other resources:
Intelligence Augmentation: Upskilling Humans to Complement AI (2025), by Chris Dede, Ashley Etemadi, and Tessa Forshaw
Resources shared, 02/20/25
Below are resources shared during our first session. This collection serves as a convenient repository of shared resources and is not intended as an endorsement or promotion.
Books:
Nexus: a brief history of information networks from the stone age to AI (2024), by Yuval Noah Harari
The Myth of Artificial Intelligence Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do (2022), by Erik Larson
Articles:
Adopt or Resist? Beyond the AI Culture Wars How to find a middle ground about a technology that is, and will remain, unavoidable for virtually every discipline. (20 Feb 2025) by Marc Watkins
AI chatbots unable to accurately summarise news, BBC finds (11 Feb 2025) by Imran Rahman-Jones
Is Artificial Intelligence Magic? What does the anthropology of magic reveal about how people create and use AI? (2019) by Matthew Gwynfryn Thomas
Is AI Going to Change the Way We Speak? (2024) by Emily Pogue
Podcasts and blogs:
But what is a neural network? | Deep learning chapter 1 by Grant Sanderson, Three Blue One Brown
Other resources:
Resources shared, 03/13/25
Below are resources shared during our first session. This collection serves as a convenient repository of shared resources and is not intended as an endorsement or promotion.
Books:
Articles:
Podcasts and blogs:
Other resources:
Resources shared, 04/03/25
Below are resources shared during our first session. This collection serves as a convenient repository of shared resources and is not intended as an endorsement or promotion.
Books:
Articles:
Podcasts and blogs:
Other resources:
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