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While ChatGPT has recently become very popular, AI has a long history and philosophy. This paper intends to explore the promises and pitfalls of the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) AI and potentially future technologies by adopting a speculative methodology. Speculative future narratives with a specific focus on educational contexts are provided in an attempt to identify emerging themes and discuss their implications for education in the 21st century. Affordances of (using) AI in Education (AIEd) and possible adverse effects are identified and discussed which emerge from the narratives. It is argued that now is the best of times to define human vs AI contribution to education because AI can accomplish more and more educational activities that used to be the prerogative of human educators. Therefore, it is imperative to rethink the respective roles of technology and human educators in education with a future-oriented mindset.

Controlling the spread of an infectious disease depends critically on the general public’s adoption of preventive measures. Theories of health behavior suggest that risk perceptions motivate preventive behavior. The supporting evidence for this causal link is, however, of questionable validity. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a rare opportunity to examine how risk perceptions, preventive behavior, and the link between them develop in a fast-changing risky environment. In a 4-wave longitudinal study conducted in the United States and China, we found that for Chinese participants, there was little relationship between risk perceptions and preventive behavior. This may be a result of the Chinese government’s strict control and containment policies and a collectivistic culture that encourages conforming to norms—both of which limit individuals’ nonconformist behavior. For U.S. participants, risk perceptions did motivate preventive behavior in the early stage of the pandemic; however, as time went by and the risk of COVID-19 persisted, preventive behavior also led to perception of higher infection risk, which in turn further motivated preventive behavior. Thus, instead of the presumed unidirectional influence from perception to behavior, our results indicate that the two could mutually reinforce each other. Overall, our findings suggest that risk perceptions—at least in the context of a dynamic health hazard—may only motivate preventive behavior at specific stages and under specific conditions. They also highlight the importance of early interventions in promoting preventive behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet can make markets more competitive, but whether this holds for on-line price levels and price dispersion is unclear, perhaps because the maturity, or level of development, of Internet markets has not been widely studied. This paper explores how the maturity of an Internet market affects on-line market pricing in relation to types of products and retailers. It analyzes the pricing differences between pure on-line retailers (e-tailers) and hybrid retailers (multichannel retailers) for three categories of products (books, CDs, digital cameras) in two countries with different levels of Internet maturity (China and the United States). The results show that (1) e-tailer price dispersion is lower in the United States than in China, (2) price levels in the two countries vary with product types, and (3) in both countries, e-tailers have lower price levels and price dispersion than hybrid retailers. These findings suggest that the maturation of Internet markets may lead to lower prices and price dispersion, but with variations dependent on type of product and retailer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]