Choose Your Adventure - AI Tutor or Cheat? | Ep. 70

VOTE FOR MATT & LIZ (SXSW EDU)Vote for Matt and Liz’s live ChatEDU session -https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw26/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1753650289710001LzZMVote for Liz’s Personal Interest Project (PIP) session -https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw26/community-voting-edu/page/community-voting/session/1753465373604001edhOIn this episode of ChatEDU (Choose Your Adventure - AI Tutor or Cheat?), Matt and Liz open with updates on robot massages, laundry-folding bots, and a favorite new AI memory prompt from Westport, Connecticut, followed by a global rundown, a breakthrough in 3D world modeling, and a deeper look at ChatGPT’s new Study Mode and what it reveals about student learning.Story #1: The Rundown Goes Global and Local From robot assistants to policy shifts, this week’s rundown spans AI headlines with big implications: NotebookLM can now build narrated slide decks, the National Science Foundation is investing $100 million in AI research, and the Presidential AI Challenge invites students and teachers to tackle real-world problems. Switzerland launches a green multilingual LLM, China and India expand AI education, and Oregon partners with NVIDIA to grow AI learning. Sam Altman warns of AI dependency, and users discover their ChatGPT chats may not be legally private, news that highlights both momentum and risk.Story #2: A 3D World from Words Tencent’s Hunyuan World 1.0 lets users create immersive 3D environments from a simple text prompt. Open-sourced on GitHub, it combines panoramic image generation with interactive object control. Still technical for now, it hints at uses in education, simulation, and storytelling. Today it requires Unity and Python; eventually, students could build explorable science labs or historical settings with a sentence.Story #3 (Beneath the Surface): Study Mode and the Tutor ButtonOpenAI’s new Study Mode turns ChatGPT into a Socratic tutor—on for scaffolded questions, off for full essays. Matt and Liz explore what this reveals about learning and agency, and examine the system prompt behind it. MIT warns it still draws from flawed sources, but it’s more engaging than static study guides. Custom GPTs and student-built tutors may be next. As AI reshapes education, Study Mode offers a sharper view of what’s possible, and what’s at stake.Links and References (as mentioned in the show)Presidential AI Challengehttps://www.ai.gov/initiatives/presidential-challengeSwiss Multilingual LLM from WINShttps://www.winssolutions.org/switzerland-open-source-llm-new-standard/MIT Technology Review on China’s AI Pushhttps://www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/28/1120747/chinese-universities-ai-use/Hunyuan World 1.0 GitHubhttps://github.com/Tencent-Hunyuan/HunyuanWorld-1.0Study Mode Overview (Neuron)https://www.theneuron.ai/newsletter/chatgpt-became-your-tutorMIT Review on Study Modehttps://www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/29/1120801/openai-is-launching-a-version-of-chatgpt-for-college-students/#:~:text=OpenAI%20is%20launching%20Study%20Mode,academic%20year%20starts%20in%20September.Business Insider on Study Mode and Buying a Carhttps://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-study-mode-ai-big-life-decision-making-buy-car-2025-7Forbes on System Promptshttps://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2025/08/03/deciphering-the-custom-instructions-underlying-openais-new-chatgpt-study-mode-reveals-vital-insights-including-for-prompt-engineering/AI Agents Build COVID Vaccine (Stanford)https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/07/virtual-scientist.htmlAI Immunotherapy Designhttps://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv0422YouTube AI Age Detectionhttps://blog.youtube/news-and-events/extending-our-built-in-protections-to-more-teens-on-youtube/AnnouncementsFall Micro-Credential Waitlist is OpenGet on the list at skills21.org/ai/microNew Student AI Literacy CurriculumEmail Matt and Liz to learn more: [email protected]