The implications of the current AI hype cycle are impossible to accurately predict and quantify. Will it be AI's transformative moment, or not? And yet educators are tasked with using AI to empower themselves and students, introducing policies and practices that protect everyone from harm, and reforming teaching and assessment to better prepare people for how AI may change the world.

So what can you do? Where can you gain agency and clarity on the next steps, even if the steps after that are unclear? 

My suggestion: Recognize you're not alone, take a deep breath, and leverage your own remarkable intelligence. Distinguish between the immediate, tactical actions needed to address current AI challenges and the strategic responses required to position yourself for a future where every moment isn't an AI-driven crisis. 

Both approaches require gaining a basic understanding of AI's capabilities and limitations and breaking the problem into manageable pieces. For immediate actions, identify the specific AI challenge. Are you concerned about inappropriate use? If so, what type of AI, and which functions trouble you? Given the difficulty detecting AI use, how can you discourage misuse? Do users understand the AI's capabilities? Could more education help? 

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Once immediate actions are identified, craft your strategic response. Consider how AI could expedite or enhance your goals. Identify areas that could benefit from implementation. To do so, grasp available technologies and your team's ability to use them effectively. In essence, let’s embrace the tumultuous AI landscape confidently, with understanding and a clear strategy. By doing so, we can chart a course towards a future where AI serves progress, not uncertainty.

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Looking across the news more broadly (further  summarised below), there is certainly some comfort to be taken  from the way influencers, organisations and nations are tackling the need for AI regulation, although the shortage of AI expertise and understanding will likely lead to a bumpy path from where we are now to effective regulation. Litigation continues to chart out what is and is not legal and AI companies are starting to implement better protections for users, although this is still a work in progress. Perhaps even more encouragingly, groups such as Hollywood writers are starting to influence the agenda.  

However, developments in AI are still very chaotic and confusing.. Progress is largely driven by people whose primary motivation is to make money quickly. It is a field that few truly understand and many wish did not exist. But it does, and the pressure on education to respond effectively grows.

The huge investments being made to develop AI technology and apply it in products and services, many of which will likely be targeted at or adapted for education and training, illustrates this pressure. So does the growing realisation that workplaces need more people able to safely leverage the onslaught of unregulated, poorly understood AI applications rushing towards us. The situation is uncomfortable, uncertain, and potentially problematic.