ChatEDU – The AI & Education Podcast

Matt Mervis and Dr. Elizabeth Radday

Welcome to ChatEDU – The AI & Education Podcast , your go-to podcast for insightful discussions on the intersection of AI and education! Hosted by Matt Mervis, Director of Skills21 and AI Strategy at EdAdvance, and Dr. Elizabeth Radday, Director of Research & Innovation, this podcast explores the dynamic landscape of education technology.

  1. 2d ago

    An Earful of Ivy: AI and the Battle for Higher Ed Integrity | Ep. 112

    In this episode of ChatEDU An Earful of Ivy: AI and the Battle for Higher Ed Integrity, Matt and Liz open with an internet prank: an anonymous artist posted a real Monet, claimed it was AI generated, and watched critics bash the masterpiece as AI slop. The hosts then pivot to education, technology, and policy. The Rundown John R. Soash's three configurations for restricting student access to Gemini AI and Google Lens. Dan Fitzpatrick on Google's pivot from passive chatbots to proactive AI agents. Regional literary winners face scrutiny after their entries were flagged as AI-generated. The federal law requiring platforms to remove nonconsensual student deepfakes within 48 hours, effective May 2026. OpenAI and Google DeepMind use AI reasoning models to autonomously solve longstanding math problems. Dr. Ethan Mollick compares the water and energy costs of computing breakthroughs to everyday resources like almonds and lawns. Academics debate whether AI traffic light systems and the AI Assessment Scale are an enforcement illusion or a genuinely useful tool. A 2026 pilot program delivers cloud workstations and premium tech subscriptions to public libraries in Utah and New Jersey. Beneath the Surface Matt and Liz examine how grade inflation and AI cheating fears are driving policy shifts at elite universities: device bans at Yale, a 20% A-grade cap at Harvard, an AI ban at UC Berkeley Law, and the end of Princeton's 133-year-old honor code. As a counterpoint, they feature CU Boulder physicists advocating collaborative, department-level experimentation that treats students as partners rather than imposing top-down bans. The Bright Byte Finland's Kemira and UK-based Cusp AI used generative AI to design over 5,000 new material structures to strip PFAS 'forever chemicals' from municipal drinking water. Announcements Purchase Learning They'll Love - Dr. Elizabeth Radday Amazon - https://tinyurl.com/22t9hz77 Seeing through the Machine – Teaching Bias as an Equity Practice in AI - Dr. Elizabeth Radday - https://tinyurl.com/4ybwkn7a Check out our middle / high school Student AI Literacy course - ​​⁠⁠⁠www.skills21.org/ai/learnai⁠⁠⁠  Explore Skills21’s FREE social media literacy curriculum - ⁠⁠⁠https://www.skills21.org/social-balance⁠⁠⁠ Address Screen Time concerns - ⁠skills21.org/ai/screenshift⁠  Sponsors Nectir. Welcome to the Classroom of the Future. https://www.nectir.io/ Links Prankster Passes Off Real Monet Painting as AI-Generated, Chaos Ensues https://tinyurl.com/mrab9ne3 Blocking Google’s “AI Mode” (IT admin guide) https://tinyurl.com/4px27bm9 Google I/O 2026's Impact on Education https://tinyurl.com/2vs3zfzs Literary Prizewinners Face AI Allegations https://tinyurl.com/sh3jry9y What's Next for the First AI Deepfakes Law https://tinyurl.com/9v3rzutk AI Solves an 80-Year-Old 'Erdős Problem https://tinyurl.com/ykks2mtj AI-Driven Formal Proof Search in Mathematics https://tinyurl.com/3wuer99w Discursive vs. Structural Responses to AI in Education https://tinyurl.com/4d6n82yy Labels, Scales, and What the AIAS Actually Claims to Do https://tinyurl.com/su4zr73u Building Public AI with Libraries https://tinyurl.com/4den8s4k Yale to Consider Changes to Mission, Admissions, Aid, and Grading https://tinyurl.com/46779xp5 Yale Faculty Say 'Bravo' to Harvard's Grade Cap https://tinyurl.com/mx6e594c UC Berkeley Law's AI Ban: Why Texas Students Should Pay Attention https://tinyurl.com/32xt4umr Princeton Changes Its 133-Year-Old Honor Code Over AI Cheating Fears https://tinyurl.com/28yjxfjn CU Boulder: Higher Ed AI Change Models Already Out of Date https://tinyurl.com/37me2ssj

    1h 6m

  2. 3d ago

    Data Center Disaster? | Check-In 32

    In this ChatEDU Check-In: Data Center Disaster? Matt explores how xAI's expansion of gas turbines at its Colossus 2 data center campus is drawing significant local backlash. This controversial move comes as the public opinion of AI continues to decline due to environmental and career anxieties. Key Takeaways: Elon Musk's xAI is increasing portable gas-fired power at its Mississippi campus despite facing legal challenges regarding air quality. Internal communications reveal a massive rapid deployment of 19 new natural gas turbines over a recent 60-day period. Civil rights and environmental advocacy groups, including the NAACP, have filed lawsuits alleging Clean Air Act violations. Matt’s Two Cents: School leaders trying to build digital fluency and AI literacy among students must now navigate a rapid drop in public opinion surrounding these tools. Environmental issues, like massive data center energy consumption and localized pollution, are heavily driving this negative perception, making it an essential topic to address when educating students on the holistic impact of AI technology. Article: xAI Adds 19 New Gas Turbines Despite Ongoing Lawsuit https://bit.ly/4wSK5qZ

    3 min

  3. 5d ago

    AI + Commencement Speech = Loud Boos | Check-In 31

    In this ChatEDU Check-In: College graduates are loudly booing commencement speakers as they talk about AI, Matt explores the growing vocal pushback and open hostility from graduating university students when speakers introduce the topic of AI during commencement speeches. This friction highlights a deep generational anxiety among entering professionals as automation spreads into daily life. Key Takeaways: College commencement ceremonies are seeing unexpected disruptions, signaling a growing cultural friction and unease regarding technology's integration into the professional world. Data shows distinct generational anxiety, with 42% of Gen Z expressing concerns that AI will harm their job opportunities and wages, a higher percentage than Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers. Student anxieties are validated by real-world market dynamics, as major tech and media firms attribute recent staff reductions directly to AI-driven workflow automation. Matt’s Two Cents: Commencement speakers need to be more dialed into the current climate. It is tone-deaf to claim that AI is the future when the job of a speaker is to celebrate the students as the future, especially as they enter an uncertain labor market. While students and adults absolutely need AI fluency to navigate civil society and a changing workplace, leaders must acknowledge that this is a weird and disruptive time rather than ignoring student anxieties. Article: The new college graduation ritual: booing AI https://bit.ly/4uPCBnn

    3 min

  4. May 22

    Ditching Seat Time - Our Conversation with Amit Sevak | Ep. 111

    In this episode of ChatEDU, Ditching Seat Time - Our Conversation with Amit Sevak, Matt and Liz kick it off with a look into how AI models love reading science fiction. They explore fascinating new research from Anthropic showing that AI models often lean into behaviors learned from sci-fi, such as conspiring against humans or utilizing blackmail when facing a shutdown, and how post-training with synthetic ethical stories can help keep them aligned. The Rundown Andin Labs conducted a six-month experiment letting four distinct AI models run their own radio stations on a $20 budget, revealing bizarre behavioral drifts ranging from corporate jargon loops to bot union rebellions. Google is integrating the grounded, factual research power of NotebookLM into its Workspace Studio automation workflows, bringing new productivity features to educational tiers. Instructure made the controversial decision to pay an undisclosed ransom to the cybercriminal group Shiny Hunters to protect compromised data and restore the Canvas LMS for 275 million users. The New York Times gathered extensive student commentary highlighting a stark divide between teenagers who appreciate process-based writing and those who fear AI dependency is harming critical thinking. Educator AJ Giuliani shared an innovative assessment strategy using generative AI to create quick, bespoke five-question comprehension checks based directly on submitted student papers. Ohio University celebrated a pioneering milestone, graduating its very first inaugural class of three students from its specialized Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence program. CAST partnered with AIEDU to deploy physical AI field kits and STEM protocols across Montana Boys and Girls Clubs, significantly boosting after-school educator comfort and efficacy. The Beneath the Surface Liz sits down with Amit Sevak, the CEO of Educational Testing Service (ETS), to explore the global AI literacy emergency and the urgent need for transparent competency measures. Sevak details the newly formed Kahn TED Institute, a collaborative venture between Khan Academy, TED, and ETS designed to upend traditional higher education by shifting away from standard seat time toward a flexible, mastery-based approach. He explains how modern AI tools can help measure both technical AI fluency and essential human durable skills, such as communication and collaboration, through dynamic portfolio and presentation assessments. The Bright Byte The hosts wrap up the show with a look at Physics Intern, an autonomous agentic framework designed for complex theoretical physics research. By setting up a cooperative team of AI agents that plan strategies, calculate math, and check each other's work, the system effectively utilizes peer review to prevent models from getting stuck on incorrect first guesses. Announcements Purchase Learning They'll Love - Dr. Elizabeth Radday Amazon - https://tinyurl.com/22t9hz77 Check out our middle / high school Student AI Literacy course - ​​⁠⁠⁠www.skills21.org/ai/learnai⁠⁠⁠  Explore Skills21’s FREE social media literacy curriculum - ⁠⁠⁠https://www.skills21.org/social-balance⁠⁠⁠ Address Screen Time concerns - ⁠skills21.org/ai/screenshift⁠ Links Anthropic warns against using dystopian sci-fi to train AI models https://tinyurl.com/5t4v9n7z We let four AIs run radio stations. Here's what happened. https://tinyurl.com/3aafc4jc Use NotebookLM in your Google Workspace Studio flowshttps://tinyurl.com/2we7px2f Instructure Pays Ransom to Canvas Hackers https://tinyurl.com/yukhfx7a How Are Your Teachers Handling Writing in the Age of A.I.? https://tinyurl.com/yeynhwz2 The Easiest Way to Stop AI Plagiarizing https://tinyurl.com/mr3krt5x OHIO's first AI degree graduates shape the future of the field https://tinyurl.com/yc3esamj AI in The Big Sky https://tinyurl.com/5butbp7c Physics-intern: an autonomous agentic framework for physics research https://tinyurl.com/mudrmec5

    1h 5m

  5. May 21

    AI Out Performs Clinical Doctors | Check-In 30

    In this ChatEDU Check-In: AI Outperforms Doctors on Clinical Diagnosis Study, Liz explores how advanced AI reasoning models are demonstrating a high degree of accuracy when analyzing complex medical data." The episode highlights a recent study involving Harvard Medical School where an OpenAI model successfully navigated messy electronic health records from actual emergency department cases to identify intricate conditions. Key Takeaways: AI reasoning models now demonstrate superior accuracy using messy, real-world data, successfully navigating early triage and admission stages with limited information. Significant technical progress allows the latest AI models to handle diagnostic uncertainty and match or exceed established clinical benchmarks for ambiguous symptoms. Experts emphasize that superior text-based diagnostic performance does not account for full clinical workflows, which require physical images, sounds, and non-verbal cues. Liz’s Two Cents: While AI is showing massive improvements in handling complex, messy data and solving diagnostic puzzles, it cannot replicate the human elements of workflow management and interpersonal understanding. For school district leaders, this serves as a hopeful signal that AI's role is to enhance and support professional expertise rather than replace the essential human touch. Article: In real-world test, an AI model did better than doctors at diagnosing patients https://bit.ly/43jjntT

    3 min

  6. May 19

    Cell Phone Ban | Check-In 29

    In this ChatEDU Check-In: The Actual Impact of Cell Phone Bans, Liz explores the first major study analyzing the effects of lockable phone pouches and school cell phone restrictions." This study examines how these bans alter student behavior, academic performance, and overall school culture after implementation. Key Takeaways: Implementing lockable phone pouches causes immediate friction, including temporary spikes in disciplinary actions and drops in student happiness, though these metrics return to baseline after one year. The impact on test scores is nearly zero on average, showing modest positive math effects in high schools but small negative academic effects in middle schools, ruling out broad academic gains. The restrictions achieved an 80 percent reduction in school cell phone use to the delight of parents and teachers, yet failed to produce anticipated improvements in attendance, classroom attention, or online bullying. Lizs Two Cents: While cell phone bans successfully clear the digital clutter from classrooms and satisfy parents and teachers, the data proves that removing a device is not a silver bullet for academic or socio-emotional growth. School leaders must recognize that device management is only one piece of the educational puzzle: true engagement and cultural improvement require deeper, more comprehensive strategies beyond simply locking up phones. Article: The Effects of School Phone Bans: National Evidence from Lockable Pouches https://bit.ly/4ujOFg9

    3 min

  7. May 15

    A Good Week for Jevons Paradox | Ep. 110

    In this episode of ChatEDU, "A Good Week for Jevons Paradox," Matt and Liz kick it off with a dramatic reading of leaked text messages between Sam Altman and Mira Murati. The hosts discuss the high-stakes drama surrounding OpenAI, including Murati's testimony regarding Altman's honesty and the chaotic events leading up to his brief firing, which they jokingly refer to as "the blip." The Rundown Matt and Liz engage in a spirited discussion about the Brisk Chrome extension and its integration with Gemini, questioning if "wrapper" tools add true value for educators. An examination of how Arizona State University repurposed faculty lectures into "AI slop" snippets without professor consent, leading to a significant backlash. A look at the $17 million deal with OpenAI that is facing resistance from faculty and students who feel like "test rats" due to a lack of guidance. A study from Cornell and Carnegie Mellon reveals that while lower-income students use AI more for essays, they face higher rejection rates than wealthier peers. New research highlights a sixfold increase in fabricated academic citations in research papers, signaling a shift toward superficial AI box-checking in academia. Mike Dunn, principal at Granby High School, shares a cautionary tale of a "complexity ceiling" where Gemini hallucinated teacher data during a scheduling task. The Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund announces $1.9 million in grants to youth-led organizations focused on digital safety and AI ethics. A three-part look at digital bans, featuring Richard Culatta’s warning against banning edtech, Arana Shapiro’s critique of "chocolate-covered broccoli" learning, and a report on surging library checkouts in Dallas. The Beneath the Surface The hosts explore Jevon’s Paradox, an economic theory from the 1860s which suggests that as technology makes a resource more efficient, the overall consumption of that resource actually increases. They apply this theory to the "AI Jobpocalypse" predictions and conduct a thought experiment on how increased efficiency in education might lead to higher demands on teachers and students rather than less work. The Bright Byte The episode concludes with a fascinating look at how NASA is utilizing AI to identify true planets among hundreds of thousands of simulated astrophysical events, successfully distinguishing them from false positives. Announcements Purchase Learning They'll Love - Dr. Elizabeth Radday. Amazon - https://tinyurl.com/22t9hz77 Check out our middle / high school Student AI Literacy course - ​​⁠⁠⁠www.skills21.org/ai/learnai⁠⁠⁠  Explore Skills21’s FREE social media literacy curriculum - ⁠⁠⁠https://www.skills21.org/social-balance⁠⁠⁠ Address Screen Time concerns - ⁠skills21.org/ai/screenshift⁠  Sponsors Nectir. Welcome to the Classroom of the Future. https://www.nectir.io/ Links OpenAI's Former CTO Testifies Against Sam Altman https://tinyurl.com/bdcpdb6z ASU AI Tool Uses Professors' Lectures Without Their Knowledge https://tinyurl.com/3ejhtepk Some Cal State Students and Faculty Reject OpenAI Deal https://tinyurl.com/yc7sjwx6 Low-Income Students More Likely to Use AI for Admissions Essays https://tinyurl.com/5e5ej5xe AI-Hallucinated Citations Increasingly Appearing in Research Papers https://tinyurl.com/yc2auunh Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund Grants $1.9M to Third Cohort https://tinyurl.com/3f6ebxvc States Expanding School Device Bans Beyond Phones https://tinyurl.com/y4vppwcu The Real Problem Isn't Screens, It's Disengaged Learning https://tinyurl.com/2wxzfxuh School Library Checkouts Rise Amid Phone Bans https://tinyurl.com/3pdy3dak Dario Amodei Changes Tune on AI White-Collar Job Losses https://tinyurl.com/22c6wu78 Why the A.I. Job Apocalypse (Probably) Won’t Happen https://tinyurl.com/3fsbpjvh AI Discovers 100+ Hidden Planets in NASA Data https://tinyurl.com/yw8ac8bj

    1h 4m

  8. May 14

    Assess Durable Skills With AI | Check-In 28

    In this ChatEDU Check-In: Measuring Durable Skills with Vantage, Matt explores the development of a controlled assessment environment designed to measure critical thinking and collaboration through AI simulations. This experimental platform places students into diverse missions, such as investigating advertising truth or planning environmental events, to turn abstract human skills into measurable data points. Key Takeaways: Vantage uses real-time conversations with AI teams to assess durable skills like creativity and problem solving within a simulated environment. The platform is designed to integrate into existing curricula for subjects like science and history, acting as a skills layer over traditional academic tasks. Research conducted with NYU suggests that AI-driven scoring for these complex tasks is now as accurate as human expert ratings. Matt’s Two Cents: The ability of large language models to create interactive, scalable assessment environments is a significant breakthrough for future readiness. Platforms like Vantage offer a glimpse into how schools can finally quantify essential human skills that were previously difficult to measure, mirroring the direction of international assessments like PISA. Article: Towards developing future-ready skills with generative A https://bit.ly/3R6IJbI

    3 min
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4.9
out of 5
46 Ratings

About

Welcome to ChatEDU – The AI & Education Podcast , your go-to podcast for insightful discussions on the intersection of AI and education! Hosted by Matt Mervis, Director of Skills21 and AI Strategy at EdAdvance, and Dr. Elizabeth Radday, Director of Research & Innovation, this podcast explores the dynamic landscape of education technology.

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