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The 2017 Academy Awkwards, From La La Land To Pa-ree

Oscar-worthy SNAFU
Oscar-worthy SNAFU
Bertrand Hauger

PARIS — There's no fixed running time for the Academy Awards ceremony. If you live on the East Coast, and are not a night owl, you may very well have not made it last night to Best Picture. It's usually not that big of a deal, with some arguing that the Hollywood show has become somewhat predictable.


Living in Paris and needing our beauty sleep, my wife coerced me and I started this sweet tradition a couple of years ago of watching the Oscars the following night, dans les conditions du direct. Meaning that she'll spend her whole Monday avoiding social media, online news, TV and radio. Being an online journalist, she basically has to take a day off, or cover her ears and go LALALA — or, more like La La Land, am I right?


I on the other hand, being a serious journalist too and generally not giving a damn about keeping the whole thing a surprise, started my morning as usual by opening up my PEOPLE.com app the Financial Times, looking for a quick list of winners, some commentary on unavoidable Trump takedowns, and photos of the worst dressed on the red carpet.


But as you may or may not know (depending on your time zone), this was anything but a predictable Oscar night. The plot twist was itself Oscar-worthy, with La La Land being initially declared Best Picture winner when in fact, the prize went to Moonlight.

While the internet explores the depths of this memorable pop culture moment, the authorities are investigating just what went wrong. No doubt someone in Hollywood will soon be pitching a screenplay called "The Envelope", with Meryl Streep as Emma Stone — you know she can pull it off — Michael Fassbender as Warren Beatty, and Ryan Gosling as the Oscar statuette (same acting range).


I can't wait to watch the show with my blissfully unaware wife. There are already reaction compilations up there of people cursing and screaming all sorts of nonsense. As for my bilingual better half, I'll just sit back and watch her go: "oh putain, oh putain, oh my God, oh my God ..." Then the initial shock will pass and she'll just have one word, en anglais to say it all: awkwaaard.

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Future

AI Is Good For Education — And Bad For Teachers Who Teach Like Machines

Despite fears of AI upending the education and the teaching profession, artificial education will be an extremely valuable tool to free up teachers from rote exercises to focus on the uniquely humanistic part of learning.

Journalism teacher and his students in University of Barcelona.

Journalism students at the Blanquerna University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

© Sergi Reboredo via ZUMA press
Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ - Early in 2023, Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates included teaching among the professions most threatened by Artificial Intelligence (AI), arguing that a robot could, in principle, instruct as well as any school-teacher. While Gates is an undoubted expert in his field, one wonders how much he knows about teaching.

As an avowed believer in using technology to improve student results, Gates has argued for teachers to use more tech in classrooms, and to cut class sizes. But schools and countries that have followed his advice, pumping money into technology at school, or students who completed secondary schooling with the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have not attained the superlative results expected of the Gates recipe.

Thankfully, he had enough sense to add some nuance to his views, instead suggesting changes to teacher training that he believes could improve school results.

I agree with his view that AI can be a big and positive contributor to schooling. Certainly, technological changes prompt unease and today, something tremendous must be afoot if a leading AI developer, Geoffrey Hinton, has warned of its threat to people and society.

But this isn't the first innovation to upset people. Over 2,000 years ago, the philosopher Socrates wondered, in the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, whether reading and writing wouldn't curb people's ability to reflect and remember. Writing might lead them to despise memory, he observed. In the 18th and 19th centuries, English craftsmen feared the machines of the Industrial Revolution would destroy their professions, producing lesser-quality items faster, and cheaper.

Their fears were not entirely unfounded, but it did not happen quite as they predicted. Many jobs disappeared, but others emerged and the majority of jobs evolved. Machines caused a fundamental restructuring of labor at the time, and today, AI will likely do the same with the modern workplace.

Many predicted that television, computers and online teaching would replace teachers, which has yet to happen. In recent decades, teachers have banned students from using calculators to do sums, insisting on teaching arithmetic the old way. It is the same dry and mechanical approach to teaching which now wants to keep AI out of the classroom.

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