This message was originally shared to subscribers July 23, 2026.
This Issue’s Tip: Tech Tips Session
Shannon Glennon’s Claude Refresher session is now available to watch on your own time. The session covered the fundamentals of using Claude effectively, plus a few extra tips to sharpen your AI skills for everyday work. Watch the recording whenever it’s convenient and get up to speed on Claude at Syracuse University.
News and Views
In Summary
A viral Brown University grade chart, initially read as proof of rampant cheating, sparked debate over whether outdated assessment design—not student character—is the real issue. Meanwhile, Chronicle essays argued AI is forcing university structures to disaggregate, while educators wrestled with what “AI-proofing” students through critical thinking actually requires in practice.
Academia and Higher Education
- AI Slop Is a Tenure Problem (Inside Higher Ed)
- To AI-Proof Lawyers, Some Law Schools Restrict Technology (Inside Higher Ed)
- How ‘Chaos’ Surrounding AI Can Sink a College Presidency (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Can Colleges AI-Proof Their Students? (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
- The University After AI (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
- That Chart From Brown Isn’t Really About Cheating (Inside Higher Ed)
- Introducing Claude for Teachers (Anthropic)
Culture and Media
- An AI With No Body Just Landed a Movie Deal (PYMNTS)
- Can A.I. Keep a Parent Alive? (New Yorker)
- AI Content Is Everywhere on Social Media, Especially LinkedIn (Pangram)
- We Are Losing the Ability to Discover What We Didn’t Know to Ask (The New York Times)
- How Google’s A.I. Search Is Imperiling the Open Web (The New York Times)
Industry and Safety
- OpenAI Releases New, More Powerful A.I. Model (The New York Times)
- OpenAI Models Escaped Containment and Hacked Hugging Face (Wired)
Policy and Global Competition
- Pritzker Signs Landmark AI Regulation Bill (Capitol News Illinois)
- Trump’s AI Flip-Flopping Could Be a Gift to China (Politico)
- First Statewide Moratorium on New Hyperscale Data Centers Launched by Governor Hochul (New York State)
- Behind the Curtain: AI Godfathers Converge on Regulations (Axios)
- A Framework for Frontier AI and the Dawning of a New Age (Demis Hassabis)
- UAE National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031 (UAE [pdf])
- OpenAI and Anthropic Unite Against China’s Open Models (Axios)
- America is Building the Best AI. China is Building the Default. (Shelly Palmer)
- AI Surveillance Is Being Supercharged – and It Will Chill Social Progress (The Guardian)
Workforce and Jobs
- AI Won’t Cut Jobs, It’ll Multiply Them: Gartner (Channel Dive)
- Why Recruiters Can’t Find Workers and New Grads Can’t Find Jobs (It’s Not AI) (The Washington Post)
- AI Adoption Fuels Hiring, Not Layoffs, New Data Shows (PYMNTS)
- The Work of Helping A.I. Destroy Work (The New York Times)
- U.S. Workers Are More Productive Than Ever. And That’s Without A.I. (The New York Times)
- The Myth of the AI Job Apocalypse (Don Philabaum)
- AI is More Likely Than Humans to Form Biases When Hiring (MIT Technology Review)
- “We Must Act Now”: Nobel Laureates and economists call to prepare for AI’s economic transformation (Stanford Digital Economy Lab)
- Americans Deserve a Dividend From AI Companies’ Riches (The Information)
Access to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and other paywalled content is available to all students, faculty and staff with a valid Syracuse University NetID. Learn more.
This Issue’s Prompt: Argue with Yourself
A prompt is how you ask generative AI tools to do something for you (e.g., creating, summarizing, editing or transforming). Treat it like a conversation, using clear language and enough context to get the result you have in mind.
To get more practice, use the generative AI tool of your choice (for example, Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI ChatGPT or Anthropic Claude) to execute the following prompt:
“Give me your best answer to [my question], then argue against your own answer as convincingly as you can. Point out where your reasoning might be weak, what evidence you left out, and what a smart skeptic would push back on.“