Page 34 - AASBO EDGE Fall 2023 WEB

TECHNOLOGY

BY RUSSELL DENEAULT, AASBO PRESIDENT
Artificial Intelligence is the New Disruption

Russell Deneault

“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t higher tier decision making and problem solving.
yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented,
in order to solve problems we don’t even know are Here in central Phoenix, I regularly watch and interact
problems yet.” Author Steve Gunderson, in his 2004 with driverless cars on the road. Waymo touts its
book The Jobs Revolution, attributed this quote to driverless technology as using an intelligent process
former Secretary of Education, Richard Riley. At almost for “sense, solve, go.” The software driving those cars
20 years old, Riley is frequently cited in discussions makes thousands of observations and minute decisions
about teaching technology in the classroom. so a human doesn’t have to. That particular technology
solution hasn’t quite reached my business operations yet
The advent of written language, agriculture, metallurgy, but it does have me thinking about how I’m preparing
printing presses, electricity, computers, the Internet, and myself for new ways to solve new problems that are
the million other technological advances in between here in my current context.
always bear a level of disruption to productivity,
business operations, and the business of learning. How is AI Impacting The Business Office Right now?
As I’ve developed in my professional career as a Cybersecurity insurance requirements have driven an
technologist, I have been growing comfortable with my incredible level of growth in tools to better product
current landscape. I understand devices, gadgets, data, district systems and data. Among those requirements
the internet, and many of the complexities within. I am is the adoption of “next generation” threat protection.
there to support my organization and be a steady hand of Traditionally, antivirus software running on school
assurance that our District is a master of our technologies. computers monitors each individual endpoint for known
What a surprise, then, for the rapid and powerfully game- threats. If a virus is detected, that software shuts down
changing development of a new dynamic to challenge the threat and maybe reports its activity back to a
my, and every school business officials, place of comfort. central dashboard. The next generation of that software
Not only is Richard Riley’s quote still incredibly relevant collectively monitors activity on hundreds and thousands
to the future of our students, it’s a very important reality of individual endpoints, monitoring, reporting, and
in our own business offices here in 2023. Our newest and acting on behaviors that are only discoverable across the
most disruptive technological uncertainty rides upon a patterns that emerge from so many devices. Monitoring
horse named Artificial Intelligence. such huge streams of data and taking action based on
business rules is artificial intelligence.
What even is AI?
Sometimes it’s just a marketing phrase. Sometimes it’s Security cameras can be an enormous task for
a gentle evolution of the decision-making tools we’ve investigations. Dozens of cameras over hundreds of
been comfortable with using for years already. step in hours presents an enormous set of data that requires
what technology is capable of that we’re still collectively human eyes, intuition, and great effort to investigate
struggling to understand or define. The most basic and find that proverbial needle in the haystack. Modern
description of AI is that it is a way of making machines software can help to highlight unusual activity, eliminate
(computers) think in the same way that humans do. AI’s bad data (such as those trees that always trigger motion
promise lies within offloading the millions of small sensors), and direct a human actor to moments most
decisions we make every day that get in the way of likely to result in valuable information to be gathered.

|
34 THE EDGE FALL 2023