Artificial Intelligence; Genuine Learning

We live in interesting times, do we not? There is so much information competing for your attention these days, but even still, I’m sure that the subject of artificial intelligence, or AI, has earned its share of it. Are you using it? Or are you just reading about it, wondering how it’s relevant to you? Or are you just sticking your fingers in your ears and singing “la la la la la!” until it stops?

All three reactions are understandable, but make no mistake: AI is here to stay. What’s good is that Lawrenceville hit the ground running and has staked a place of true leadership among independent schools. We’re going to introduce you to the ways the School — the faculty, students, and the administration — has embraced AI, using it as a way to aid and assist understanding rather than a tool to replace it. It was affirming to learn how our students have been empowered to help set the agenda around this technological revolution at Lawrenceville, and their breezy, enthusiastic, and confident way of talking about it lends assurance to the skeptics or those born before these digital natives — not that AI is the exclusive domain of the young!

Artificial intelligence is such a boundless subject, but in this issue, we present an introductory overview of how AI is being thought about and used by our students and how the world us opening up to them because of it. I’m looking forward to talking to alumni who are working in the various aspects of AI for future issues of The Lawrentian, too. Stay tuned…

I also want to say a word about the invaluable help I receive from the people in our community, the ones who drop me a line or stop by my office to share a story idea. I’m always so grateful to  them. Over the years, we’ve devoted many pages to the accounts that came to my attention this way, and there is another one in this issue. On Halloween, Karen Weber ’92 emailed to let me know her childhood friend, Chip Trowbridge ’90, was working as the chief technology officer for Clear Ballot Group, one of the nation’s leading producers of voting machines – an industry that has been much maligned over the past few years. Karen and I chatted a bit before she connected me with Chip and bowed out of the conversation. I spoke to him just a couple days after the election, and it was most illuminating. Once the feature was written, I planned to follow up again with Karen to let her know, again, just how much I appreciated her thinking about us.

I never got the chance. The next time Karen’s name crossed my desk, it was the most unwelcome news of her passing, just a month after she had reached out to me. I would’ve enjoyed having her read the result of her thoughtfulness, but it’s no less meaningful to me now.

All the best,

Sean Ramsden
Editor
sramsden@lawrenceville.org