Education
What enables human language? A biocultural framework Science
Case study 1 considers vocal production learning, an organism's capacity to enlarge and modify its repertoire of vocalizations based on auditory experience. This ability is crucial for learning spoken language and limited in nonhuman primates but has emerged in other branches of the evolutionary tree, including subsets of birds, bats, elephants, cetaceans, and pinnipeds. Bringing together data from molecular investigations of speech and language disorders, genetic manipulations in animal models, and studies of ancient DNA, this case study demonstrates how ancient genetic and neural infrastructures may have been modified and recombined to enable distinctive human capacities. Case study 2 examines the emergence of linguistic structure, a defining property of human language, using data from real-world cases of emergence (e.g., homesign and emerging sign languages); experiments recreating cultural evolution in the lab; and comparative studies of nonhuman animals, including songbirds and primates. This case study highlights the importance of transmission and interaction, suggesting that emergence of structure involves a combination of biological, cognitive, and cultural conditions: Although some (or all) traits are shared with other species, their combination may be specific to humans.
'We could have asked ChatGPT': students fight back over course taught by AI
'We could have asked ChatGPT': students fight back over course taught by AI Students at the University of Staffordshire have said they feel "robbed of knowledge and enjoyment" after a course they hoped would launch their digital careers turned out to be taught in large part by AI. James and Owen were among 41 students who took a coding module at Staffordshire last year, hoping to change careers through a government-funded apprenticeship programme designed to help them become cybersecurity experts or software engineers. But after a term of AI-generated slides being read, at times, by an AI voiceover, James said he had lost faith in the programme and the people running it, worrying he had "used up two years" of his life on a course that had been done "in the cheapest way possible". "If we handed in stuff that was AI-generated, we would be kicked out of the uni, but we're being taught by an AI," said James during a confrontation with his lecturer recorded as a part of the course in October 2024. James and other students confronted university officials multiple times about the AI materials. But the university appears to still be using AI-generated materials to teach the course.