Stephen Downes

This article is a bit disjointed but makes some important points. One is that everything that is not AI is losing investment. "The evidence of defunding is broad and consistent. Edtech investment fell to $2.4 billion globally in 2024, the lowest since 2014, an 89 per cent decline from its 2021 peak." Another is that the money flowing into AI "is not buying better chatbots. It is buying agent infrastructure: systems that can observe, decide, act and keep acting." Finally, and perhaps most importantly, "That gap, between what these systems actually are and what the public conversation assumes they are, may be the most dangerous thing about this moment. We are still arguing about whether AI can pass exams. Meanwhile, the companies absorbing 64 per cent of global venture capital are building agent platforms with scheduled tasks, remote triggers, delegated subagents, and layered permission systems."