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Adjunct Intelligence: AI + HE

Adjunct Intelligence

Adjunct Intelligence: Ai and the future of Higher Education

Stay ahead of the AI revolution transforming education with hosts Dale, tech enthusiast and AI Nerd, and Nick McIntosh, Learning Futurist.

This weekly espresso shot delivers essential AI insights for educators, administrators, and learning professionals navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education.

Each episode brings you a concise rundown of breaking AI developments impacting education, followed by deep dives into cutting-edge research, emerging tools, and practical applications that Dale and Nick are implementing in their own work. From classroom innovations to institutional strategy, discover how AI is reshaping teaching, learning, and educational operations.

Whether you're working in the classroom, on the the classroom a university lecturer, TAFE teacher, or simply passionate about the future of learning, "Adjunct Intelligence" equips you with the knowledge to transform disruption into opportunity. Business casual, occasionally humorous, but always informative.

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  • 25 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 32 min
  • English

Episodes 25

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  • S2 · E10
    April 26 · 27 min

    The Closed Loop: AI Companies as Education Researchers

    In March 2026, OpenAI quietly published a measurement suite for how AI affects student learning. The data flows straight back into OpenAI's model development pipeline. Three AI labs released studies in the same month, and the pattern matters more than the individual papers. Dale and Nick examine OpenAI's Learning Outcomes Measurement Suite, Anthropic's 81,000-person qualitative study (where AI conducted the interviews, classified the responses, and pulled the quotes), Anthropic's labour displacement research using its own usage logs, and Google DeepMind's cognitive taxonomy for AGI. The throughline: the companies building the most consequential technology of our lifetime are also defining how learning, work, and intelligence get measured. A frank conversation about structural conflicts of interest, what universities should be doing about it, and why on current evidence they probably won't. [00:00] — Three studies, one pattern [02:30] — Watchmen and vendor capture [05:00] — Inside the measurement suite [06:30] — The closed-loop problem [09:30] — 81,000 interviews by AI [11:00] — Cognitive atrophy among educators [15:00] — Observed exposure, broken ladder [17:00] — Disclosure versus actual accountability [19:30] — A cognitive taxonomy lands [22:00] — Three options, none easy 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    • Transcript
  • S2 · E9
    April 19 · 26 min

    The data is in: Using AI impacts the classroom

    Dale changes his mind on air. For two years he argued that purpose-built educational AI tools — the "ChatGPT wrappers" that flooded Product Hunt after 2023 — were margin extraction, soon to be steamrolled by the foundation models underneath. A pile of new evidence has forced a rewrite. This episode walks through the OECD's Digital Education Outlook 2026, the Turkey maths randomised controlled trial showing raw GPT-4 users scored 17% worse on closed-book exams, the neuroscience work on cognitive offloading, the Australian Framework's procurement standard, and the UK's "progressive disclosure" mandate. The pedagogy layer isn't decoration. It's where learning either happens or doesn't. [00:00] — A confession about wrappers [02:30] — Flashback to 2023's wrapper panic [05:04] — A billion-dollar pivot, explained [07:52] — The Turkey maths study [10:16] — Cognitive offloading on college essays [11:04] — Revisiting the two sigma problem [12:47] — What good guardrails actually do [16:39] — Australia, UK, EU tighten rules [19:51] — What educators should ask vendors [23:16] — Field note worth trying 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    • Transcript
  • S2 · E8
    April 12 · 23 min

    The AI Energy conversation just got some real data.

    Dale and Nick tackle the AI energy debate head-on, armed with Google's first transparent energy report showing a single AI query uses about 0.24 watt hours — a microwave running for one second. Drawing on Hannah Ritchie's analysis from Our World in Data, the Epoch AI research group, and Stanford's inference cost data, they argue that individual guilt over AI use is not only misplaced but actively useful to the companies making the real infrastructure decisions. The episode covers water usage myths, the BP carbon footprint parallel, Jevons paradox, the case for right-sized models in education, and why the better question isn't "how much does AI cost?" but "what does it enable?" [00:00] — The energy narrative you've heard [02:04] — Episode introduction [03:00] — Google's transparent energy report [04:12] — Hannah Ritchie's individual footprint math [05:00] — Kettles, washing machines, and query comparisons [05:27] — The "please and thank you" cost reframed [06:14] — Crypto as the real energy vampire [06:38] — 33x efficiency gain in 12 months [08:21] — Energy used to block AI adoption [09:03] — Jevons paradox: individual vs aggregate [11:11] — Water usage myths debunked [12:20] — BP's carbon footprint playbook [13:52] — Not all AI use is worth it [14:30] — Training costs: $43K vs $500 billion [16:07] — You don't need an F1 car for groceries [18:08] — Air conditioning uses 10% of global electricity [19:14] — What AI enables matters more than what it costs [21:00] — Why education shouldn't sit this out 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    • Transcript
  • April 5 · 36 min

    Bonus Episode: Being Human in an AI World (feat. Better Student Leaders)

    Nick and Dale are on holidays, but we're dropping a bonus episode — Dale's recent guest appearance on the Better Student Leaders podcast with Josh. They dig into the "alien has landed" metaphor, why we've gone tribal on AI so fast, the shame creeping into how people talk about using it, a practical "line down the middle of the page" framework for deciding what AI should and shouldn't do, cyborgs versus centaurs, and what it takes for universities to be deliberate about AI rather than just letting it happen. Normal programming back next week. 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    • Transcript
  • S2 · E7
    March 29 · 42 min

    The Good News Episode: AI Breakthroughs That Actually Happened

    AI is doing extraordinary things that most people never hear about because the algorithm rewards anxiety over wonder. In this episode, the hosts go full optimism — running through real, peer-reviewed AI breakthroughs across weather forecasting, scientific research, medicine, creativity, and global access. From a two-person team outperforming IPCC climate models on a desktop computer, to an AI stethoscope detecting heart failure 2.3 times more effectively in NHS clinics, to a WhatsApp-based AI tutor reaching 4 million students across sub-Saharan Africa — these are the stories that got buried beneath the doom cycle. The episode explores what each breakthrough means for education: not just what AI can do, but who gets to use it, and what we should be teaching as a result. [00:00] — Bad news dominates AI coverage [03:10] — AI weather models slash energy [05:40] — Hurricane warning gains three days [07:55] — Thousand-year climate in hours [10:29] — AI recommends overlooked cancer drug [14:41] — Maths proof verified in days [18:34] — Brain implant restores ALS speech [22:14] — $12/month filmmaker wins festival [26:12] — WhatsApp tutor reaches millions globally [35:43] — AI stethoscope detects heart failure Links to resources available: https://www.adjunctintelligence.com/blog/let-the-good-times-roll 🎙️ Adjunct Intelligence is the weekly briefing for higher-ed professionals who want AI as a cheat code—not a headache. Every episode: • Real tests of AI tools in education and professional workflows • Fast, Monday-morning actions you can actually try • Clear signal through the noise (no hype, no jargon) 👉 Subscribe on [YouTube] | [Apple Podcasts] | [Spotify] 👉 Share this with a colleague who still says “I’ll figure AI out later” 👉 Join the conversation on LinkedIn with #AdjunctIntelligence Stay curious. Stay intelligent. Stay the human in the loop.

    • Transcript
Showing 21–25 of 25 episodes