# notes-on-the-summer-of-ai

Given the explosion of interest in generative AI tools (not to mention the proliferation of these tools--albeit of varying degrees of quality), this promises to a pivotal summer. AI is going to transform the entire knowledge-production ecosystem (and along with it the various smaller ecosystems in the education space that train knowledge workers). Much of this lies beyond our purview, but it makes sense to reflect on what it might mean of the sorts of multimodal projects that the Learning Lab supports--and to put everything in the context of the past 10 years or so that have led up to what we do now.

## multimodal literacy or mass amateurization?

So--let's start by saying that while we would certainly like to take credit for all of the excitement surrounding the tools and media that the Learning Lab currently supports, we have to concede that we were also riding a wave created by the democratization of content-generation tools.

The improvements in the smartphone camera and the arrival of (relatively) cheap large-sensor video cameras beginning with Canon's 5D Mark II in 2009 made high-quality video available on the sorts of budgets academic institutions could manage. Adobe's Creative Suite software went from being a niche product for high-end designers to being something that every single Harvard student has access to through Creative Cloud licensing. Final Cut Pro X--initially and some communities still despised as "not pro enough"--made all of the moves of professional film editing available through a more user-centric interface.

Alongside (and existing in complex causal relationships with) this democratization of content-generation tools, the large, democratized content distribution platforms of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, made it possible for creators to self-publish. The commentary of the time cast this as a sort of "mass amateurization" (Shirky), and while this probably isn't exactly the way we'd articulate it now, it's clear that something big was happening.

These developments, along with countless similar ones in the years that have followed (Canva in the content-creation space, TikTok in the platform space) made it possible for students from k-12 to college to create videos, podcasts, posters, infographics and photoessays, and have made students increasingly multimodal communicators and narrators of their own lives in their free time.

And it became possible for educational institutions to move into the digital content distribution industry themselves (see MOOCs, other online education and the various platforms developed for it).