These sixty minute, weekly sessions – facilitated by Technologists and Pedagogy Experts from the CTLT – are designed for faculty and staff at UBC who are using, or thinking about using, Generative AI tools as part of their teaching, researching, or daily work. Each week we discuss the news of the week, highlight a specific tool for use within teaching and learning, and then hold a question and answer session for attendees.

They run on Zoom every Wednesday from 1pm – 2pm and you can register for upcoming events on the CTLT Events Website.

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News of the Week

Each week we discuss several new items that happened in the Generative AI space over the past 7 days. There’s usually a flood of new AI-adjacent news every week – as this industry is moving so fast – so we highlight news articles which are relevant to the UBC community.

Here’s this week’s news:

PIA Updates for UBC: The University of British Columbia (UBC) has made some updates to their Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) to explore the implications of using GenerativeAI in teaching and learning environments, focusing on privacy and ethical considerations. More Specifically with requiring the use of Microsoft “Copilot for Organizations” within courses

No account for ChatGPT: OpenAI has made ChatGPT available without the need for an account login, facilitating wider accessibility and use of the AI tool.

Stargate data center project: Microsoft and OpenAI are collaborating on a $100 billion project, dubbed ‘Stargate’, to expand data center capabilities, reflecting their deepening partnership and commitment to advancing AI technologies.

OpenAI Synthetic Voices: OpenAI discusses the challenges and opportunities in the development of synthetic voices, highlighting the importance of ethical considerations and the potential impacts on society.

DBRX Open Source Model: Databricks has introduced DBRX, an open-source large language model that offers improved efficiency and performance, marking a significant step in the democratization and accessibility of AI technologies.

US and UK AI safety agreement: The United States and the United Kingdom have signed a landmark agreement to collaborate on the testing and safety of AI technologies, aiming to foster innovation while ensuring responsible development.

NHS AI cancer detection: An AI system developed for the NHS has shown the capability to detect small, previously missed cancers, demonstrating the potential of AI in improving diagnostic accuracy and patient outcomes in healthcare.

​​Claude by Anthropic: Anthropic has introduced “Claude,” a family of foundational AI models designed for a variety of applications, including brainstorming ideas, image analysis, and processing long documents. Within the Claude family, “Opus” stands out as the most powerful model, capable of handling complex analysis and multi-step tasks efficiently, positioning itself as a top contender in the evolving AI landscape.

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Tool of the Week

Each week we demonstrate a Generative AI tool that can be used within teaching and learning. The GenAI space is evolving rapidly, and as such we demo new tools or new ways people use those tools.

As a reminder not all tools we showcase have successfully been through the PIA process at UBC.

This week’s Tool of the Week: Claude Opus

Claude Opus is the latest flagship language model from AI research company Anthropic. It has rapidly risen to the top of independent benchmarks and leaderboards that evaluate the capabilities of large language models.

On the LMSYS Chatbot Arena leaderboard, which aggregates over 500,000 human ratings, Claude Opus is currently tied for #1 with GPT-4 models from OpenAI. It excels across a variety of tasks including multi-choice QA (86.8% accuracy), reasoning (95.4%), Python coding (84.9%), grade school math (95% and 60.1%), and more. These benchmarks showcase Claude Opus’s versatility as a general language intelligence.

As an open-domain assistant, Claude Opus can engage in substantive dialogue, provide in-depth analysis, assist with coding and creativity, and apply its knowledge to countless applications. It represents a cutting-edge achievement in natural language AI that pushes the boundaries of what is possible with large language models trained on vast datasets.

While benchmarks provide one lens, Claude Opus’s true value lies in its ability to serve as a knowledgeable and capable AI collaborator able to understand and reason over complex queries and instructions. As AI systems continue advancing rapidly, tools like Claude Opus are giving us an exciting glimpse into a future where artificial general intelligence could fundamentally augment and empower humans.

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Questions and Answers

Each studio ends with a question and answer session whereby attendees can ask questions of the pedagogy experts and technologists who facilitate the sessions. We have published a full FAQ section on this site. If you have other questions about GenAI usage, please get in touch.