April 6, 2026 • 38 mins
Entrepreneur and Activist Paul English, best known for co-founding the travel search engine KAYAK, already donated $5 million to UMass Boston back in 2023 to establish an AI Institute at his alma mater. Now, English is dropping $1 million to help train teachers at Boston Public Schools in AI so they can pass their knowledge on to students, ensuring every kid who graduates is proficient in AI. English joined Dan to talk about the importance of AI learning.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Night's Eyes with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm going Easy Boston's news radio.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, welcome back every one to our and the ninth
nine o'clock hour tonight here on night Side. My name
is Dan Ray, host of the program where we are
here every Monday through Friday night from eight until midnight.
My guest this hour is a really interesting individual who
just about a little over a week ago announced that
(00:26):
he was going to give a million dollars to kickstart
the artificial intelligence program in Boston public schools. I have
known of Paul English for some time now. He and
I traveled kind of similar paths. We both went to
Boston landin school, although me much earlier in the last
century than than Paul did. And Paul's a graduate, not
(00:52):
only an undergraduate and graduate degree from UMass Boston and
as a Boston State College undergraduate. I am also a
graduate for UMass Boston. He has been much more successful
than I though, for sure. Paul English, Welcome to NIGHTSID.
How are you.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It's great to talk to Dan.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Thanks so much, my pleasure, My pleasure. I was interested
as I did a little bit more research. You grew
up in West Roxbury in what would be considered a
very traditional Boston family, the sixth of seven children, and
I guess your parents must have set a pretty high
(01:32):
standard of academic achievement. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
My parents, my mom in particular, was a pretty pretty
serious about school. She was a school teacher in Boston.
My dad was a pipefeder for Boston Gas for I
believe forty nine years, just with a couple of years
off to do a tour of Germany during World War Two.
But aside from that, he was at Boston gassa forty
nine years. And yeah, they were serious about school.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, my dad did two and a half years on
the other side of the world China, Berman India during
World War two. So yeah, very very similar. But you
also liked computers. You were someone who understood coding early,
and you had a very successful travel company that I'm
sure people will remember called Kayak, and that was a
(02:24):
tremendous success. Let's just leave it at that. But you
have now turned your good fortune and your intelligence to
some issues and concerns that probably people do not know.
You do not know of you. You were the founder
(02:45):
I did not realize you were the founder of the
the Embrace monument statue on the Boston Common, which was
dedicated to doctor Martin Luther King. How did you come
up with that idea?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I mean, yeah that I'm embarrassed how long it took
me to get it done. I created it in twenty seventeen.
It was a time in the country where there was
a lot of nationalistic, anti immigrant, racist rhetoric, and I
was visiting an MLK and Oryland in San Francisco, a
site I've been to many times and just really moved
by it and knowing that Martin Luther King Jr. And
(03:20):
Coreta Scott King met in Boston, that love stories started
here in our city. I thought, we need something like
this in Boston to really showcase and talk about the
beginning of their the love story at the beginning of
their professional career together. So that was the idea. It
took me six years to get it done. There's a
lot of help, a lot of people, a lot of meetings,
but we got it done.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Was that a lot of red tape you had to
deal with?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Or yeah, I don't want to name names, but a
lot of people were against it. They thought what we're
doing was too large, too dramatic. It didn't fit with
the Boston Common, the Boston Commons a bunch of dead
white soldiers, and this like modern art abstracting, really fitting
with the Boston Common. Some people said, go build it
(04:03):
in Roxbury, don't build it in the Boston Common, But
we have a bunually got it done and we had a
great team. I worked with Reverend Liz Walker who you
know Liz, Yeah, Liz was at that time they had
a Roxbury Presbyterian Church and she became my co founder.
And then you know, we did I think thirteen meetings
(04:24):
around the city asking people what they wanted if we
built something to memorialize Martin Luther King Junior and credit
Scott King in the relationship, what they wanted out of
the project, and we since have gone on to raise
thirty five million dollars a racial justice projects in Boston.
The project now was led by Amari Paris. Jefferies has
been an exceptional executive director for US the last few years.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
People forget that doctor King went to Boston University graduate
school and his papers, many of his papers are at
Boston University. So let me move forward if I can.
There have been other causes that you have been involved in,
For example, the annual Winter walk. You've done that for
(05:13):
ten years for the Massachusetts Homeless Coalition, and now you're
going to try to take that nationally.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
As I understand it, Yeah, we've done it for ten years.
We had thirty five hundred walkers in Boston just a
couple of weeks ago around the Boston Common We raised
about six million dollars for homeless shelters. This year we
did walks in Boston, Chicago, New York, and a few
other smaller cities. But next year we really want to
take it national, and we're rebranding ourselves from the Winter
(05:41):
Walk to the More Homes Coalition, and we really want
to highlight innovation in homeless care around the country. So
if we find something exceptional be done in Denver or
San Diego or Seattle, we're going to highlight that, give
a cash reward to the nonprofit in the most interesting
thing with homeless care, and then trying to spread the
(06:03):
knowledge across the country about where what are the innovation
is happening, Like who's doing the best job?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, that's that is interesting because it is Homeless in
America has been a problem in this country for as
long as I can remember, going back to before you
were in high school in the nineteen seventies when I
was getting out of law school that the homeless population,
(06:30):
obviously we have it exacerbated by Mass and cass here
in Greater Boston as well, and it's been a problem
in you know, in so many cities. It's complicated. There's
no easy solution. That that's a big problem you're taking on, Paul,
I'm sure you understand the magnitude of that one.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, I've been working on this for ten years, and
I'm working with doctor Jim O'Connell, who's our chair of
a nonprofit gym is from Boston Healthcare and homeless And
the thing about homelessness is we have to realize this
affects many families, and it's something that could happen to
any of us or any of our family members. The
two most common things that put people on the street
(07:13):
is either struggling with some type of mental illness and
or some type of addiction. But the thing about those
two conditions, which often can cause homelessness, they're both curable
in most cases. You know, we have the Great Mass
General here in Boston. They're the number one mental health
hospital in the US doing research on different ways of
(07:36):
cure schizophrenia, bipolar, you know, different types of mental illnesses,
and if you get someone into therapy and get them
on the right medications, they can be cured of that.
So almostness is a horrible thing to happen to a
person and to a family. But with the right services
and the right support, we can get people jobs. We've
done it. We've gotten people jobs, We've gotten them into housing,
(07:58):
and we just need more attention on it.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, I kind of imagine what it would be like
to have a family member, or for that matter, of
a child who you knew when you went to sleep
at night, you knew that that child was out on
this shoe.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
It's horrible, It's horrible.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
How did you how were you drawing to this subject homelessness?
I mean, it's a it's a problem that affects people
all across the country. Me this, you know, yeah, I
can understand a lot of but this is a huge problem.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah. There's really two incidents of my life that caused
me to pay more attention to the people living in
the street. One is I had sold a company. I
had an e commerce company which I sold to into
it in California during the Dot com one. Oh, and
I made a bunch of money. And I'm someone who
grew up with no money and I so when I
made all this money, I was uncomfortable with it. I
wanted to give it away because I didn't know what
(08:49):
I would do with millions of dollars. And so I
called uh the uncle of one of my childhood friends.
His name was Thomas J. White. He was firm uh
Ran Jfy Construction Company, which is one of the big
four builders in Boston. And I met him. I was
forty at the time, he was eighty, and I said, Hey,
I made this money. I want to give it away,
(09:10):
Like what should I do? Who should I give it to?
And he said, go to Haiti and visit my friend,
doctor Paul Farmer, and then go visit a HOMSS shelter
in Boston and I'll get you set up to meet
some people there. And that really opened my eyes. I
was twenty years ago. I now look at I've given
away most of my kayake money at this point, and
the biggest recipients of my giving has been Homo shelters
(09:35):
and education in Haiti. So I feel like I'm honoring
my mentor, Tom who passed away ten years ago now.
But then the second thing that really drew me closer
to homeless causes was dropping downtown one day with my
son Michael. He's probably four years old at the time,
and we had a street light and there was a
man laying on the side of the road and my
(09:55):
son got very upset and said, Dad, is at a man?
Is he alive? He's okay? Said son actually asked me
to check on this guy, like what four year old
would do that, And he made me get out of
the car make sure the guy's okay. And it just
reminded me like up until then, when I saw someone
in homeless in the street, I'm guilty, I look the
other way and I walked past them. You know, try
not to engage. But through the eyes of a child,
(10:17):
we see a different world. And that opened my eyes
and I said maybe I should say hello to people
and talk to them. And when I started talking to
people living in the street, I learned a lot, like,
for example, one of the things that they say is
really difficult from friends of mine who are formerly homeless
now employed and you know, living in homes. But when
they told me they were in the street, they said
sometimes they would go months without someone saying their name.
(10:39):
And so one thing I do when I count on
the street right now is I'll say, hello, what's your name?
My name is Paul. You know it going to help you.
A lot of times I carry around like dunk Donuts
gip stificates that I give out, but I'll talk to people,
you'll treat them like a human.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well, I think I think that is an incredible reach.
I know that I'm not going to compare my efforts
meek as mild as they are compared to yours. But
whenever I am and I broadcast from home for the
(11:14):
last few years remotely, but whenever I'm was at the
station at night, it was generally me, my producer and
the cleaning crews, and I always when I had a
chance to just say hi, how you doing? And I
introduced myself and I asked them what their name was.
And it was an amazing response that I got from
(11:35):
those people, just you know what they they they they
responded very well that someone, and a lot of them
didn't speak English, but they knew the concept of what
is your name? And I think that is exactly what
you were doing. And it must have had even a
greater impact on people who were out on the street
and in need of help.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It makes a big difference. And you know, if people
want to learn more about the stories, who are these
super living in the streets, you see downtown, you see
association whatever. Tracy Kidder, a beloved author of Massachusetts, has
passed away just a couple weeks ago. His last book
was called Rough Sleepers. It's about doctor Joe O'Connell. It
was a six year project. He spent six years walking
(12:20):
the streets with Jim O'Connell. And the book is incredible.
It's a page can't put it down, and just the
stories and how multifaceted and colorful these people are, what
their lives were like before they ended up on the street.
It really will open your eyes to read that book.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, I've had I've had doctor O'Connell on and I
know that the phrase rough sleepers comes not from Boston,
but from London, where that's a homeless population. My guest
is Paul English. He is described in headlines in John
Cesto's piece Last Week. Tech entrepreneur Paul English gives one
million dollars to start the artificial intelligence program in Boston
(13:03):
public schools. We get to that and and and how
we can deal as a society with artificial intelligence. Obviously
there's a lot of upside, but there's also potentially a
lot of downside. If you like to join the conversation
and ask Paul English a question or make a comment.
Six one seven thirty six one seven. My name is
(13:27):
Dan Ray, and I like every once in a while
to have an interesting Bostonian on the show. And looking
at John Chesto's piece from a couple of weeks ago,
and also knowing what Paul English has done for our
alma mater, but his alma mater, you Mass Boston, is extraordinary.
(13:48):
We'll get into all of that right after the break
here at.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Night Side Night Side with Dan Ray, I'm telling you
BZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I referenced earlier. My guess is Paul English, a tech
entrepreneur who has just given a million dollars to kickstart
at the artificial intelligence program in Boston public schools. And
in the article that John Cesto, who's a good friend
from the Boston Globe wrote about you in late March
March thirtieth, actually that you were posed a seemingly innocuous
(14:23):
question last year by Boston Magazine. You were amongst this
group of twenty one prominent local leaders, which was if
you were mayor of Boston, what's the one thing you
would do to improve the city.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And your answer was, I would make AI learning of
AI mandatory to get a degree from any Boston public
high school.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And in that conversation or that question, you came up
with the idea of developing an AI proficiency plan. You
reached out to Mayor Wu in January, and what is
going to happen. This is now also connected to UMass Boston,
where you have an institute, an AAI center the teachers.
(15:10):
This money will fund a program to get Boston teachers
to spend some time this summer doing.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
One So the million dollars is not a huge amount
of money, but it's enough to do intensive teacher training
this summer. We're going to select I hope to announce
in May that Mary Skipper, the Visionary Superintendent of bost
Public Schools, will announce the selection of the teacher Ambassadors.
(15:38):
There the one teacher from each of the high schools
in Boston, and they will be undergoing intensive training with
u MASS Boston's AI Institute, which is a three year
old program this summer, and then instruction will begin in
the high schools in September. So it's really a very
aggressive timeline. Yes, But the way to think about it
is these kids are already using AI. They're kind of
(16:00):
figuring it out for themselves at home. We want to
put a little bit of structure behind it to teach
these kids things about like the ethics of AI, things
about when AI is biased, why is it biased, how
to detect that, when AI hallucinates, when to trust AI,
what other tools you should use it with. And we're
trying to put just a little bit of formal academic
(16:20):
rigor around AI. So these kids graduate either with AI
knowledge which will help them in their college careers, or
for the kids who don't want to go to college,
not of our needs to go to college these days.
If they take a job at a local company in Boston,
how they can use their AI skills at Boston Public
High School to improve business for any local business in Boston.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Well, you said it's aggressive, It certainly is aggressive. I
would say it's on a fast track. If September is
what four or five months away to have these teachers
from each high school in Boston trained up and ready
to get the the classes that resume in September. That's
(17:03):
going to be great. The AI Institute at you Mass
Boston was funded by you three years ago, if I'm correct,
and if I'm wrong, correct me with five million dollars.
When we get back, I'd like to talk about what
that institute, which is, you know, which is a little
bit more heavily funded, that is intended to be there
(17:27):
for a while, and I want to find out from
you what the goal of that is. And also again
it raises the identity of school that I feel close to,
and I know you feel very close to you Mass Boston.
My guest is Paul English. We have to take news break.
Paul at the bottom of the hour, see what's going
(17:48):
on in the world. If you'd like to join the
conversation six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty six
one seven, nine three one ten thirty. I think that
having a guest like this talking about something that is
very much futuristic and will affect all of us in
(18:09):
some way or another, is invaluable. I appreciate his time tonight,
and you are more than welcome to join the conversation
and ask questions and make comments. We will be back
right after the news and we'll talk a little bit
about the Institute at UMass Boston, which is also supported
and funded by Paul English, dealing with artificial intelligence, and
we're where we're going to be five ten years from now.
(18:31):
I mean, it's sometimes some people thinking it's scary. I
see some reports that say that, well, we will be fine.
I'll be interested to see what Paul English thinks, because
he knows a heck of a lot more about this
than I do. We'll be and most of you as well,
back on night Side right after this.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
With Dan Ray on Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
We're delighted to be joined by tech entrepreneur as John
Cesto in the Globe described we're talking about his donation
of a million dollars to help kickstart an artificial intelligence
program for Boston public school students. Prior to that, I
believe you donated five million dollars to U Mass Boston
(19:16):
to file to establish an AI center. What what is
the goal of the AI center? Obviously, this this training
for teachers in Boston is going to be incorporated in
the U MASS Boston AI Center this summer, in anticipation
of teachers starting to teach this September. What is the
(19:38):
goal of the AI center at you Mass Boston and
are there other schools in the area who are doing
the same thing or is the program at U MASS
Boston unique at the moment?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
What we did We started discussing plans for an AI
curriculm that you Mass four years ago, actually before AI
got super super hot. We saw that a big changes
were coming. We wanted our students U MASS to be
prepared for this. The thing that was unique about U
Mass as the largest research public research university in New
(20:13):
England and the most diverse college in New England. But
what we saw is that an opportunity to teach AI,
not to compete as science students, where traditionally you had
to study computer decigence to learn about AI. We wanted
to teach it to every student in your mouse, whether
you're a nursing student, education student, climate student, And we
(20:36):
wanted to experiment if we could teach every student across
the campus, anyone who wanted to study AI. We had
a course for them and then we put these students
together in teams. What could they invent? And so U
Mass has been running a hackathon every semester. We are
student teams and there'll be a nursing student with a
marketing student, you know, with a math student, and they're
(20:58):
building apps and it's incredibly impress of what's getting done
the other thing. In addition to focusing on cross functional,
collaborative team work with AI to all students, UMass also
has a really big focus on the ethics of AI.
You know, when should AI be used? When should it
(21:18):
not be used? People cheating when they use AI? How
can AI lead you down the rung paths sometimes? And
when teaching the students that U MASS how to have
a critical eye and know where and how they should
use AI to become better students and to become more
valuable employees when a enter the workforce.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Wow, let me get a caller a two in here,
and then I want to get from you your view
of is AI something that we should look at as
a threat or as an opportunity? Let me get a
caller of two in here. Just to incorporate some of
the callers, let me go to Maureene in Winchester. Maureene,
(21:58):
welcome your first This Hour with Paul English on Marien.
Where wouldn't Maureen be Rob.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I just want to say that we are so lucky
and fortunate to have people like you, Dan and Paul
to be part of the Boston Saying to help innovate
and and help everybody grow. I think AI has more
benefits than negatives. I do support AI. I use it
(22:29):
a little bit. My sister is a computer scientists. Since
the eighties, she made me use computers, learned computer Since then,
I've gabbled a little bit en coding myself, and there
are she's leading the AI efforts at her current employer,
and there's definitely more pros and cons and I think
(22:49):
we shouldn't be afraid of it. We need to learn
how to embrace it. And like Paul was saying about
the ethics. So that's that's my opinion. And I think
it's really great that Paul is doing tons of social work,
philothropic work and work with the homeless. I just learned
(23:12):
somebody in my church in Winchester was homeless and he
does the walk, you know, for the homeless. And another
lady goes to South Station every Wednesday night she collects
items from people in our free cycle and donates it.
And a lady that in another church. She goes and
(23:33):
counsels to the homeless and South Station and Harvard Square,
and I've connected with some of those people on Facebook,
and you know, sometimes they pass away and I've been
invited to some of their funerals. I haven't been any,
just more to timing, but they do need somebody to
talk to. And one thing that haunts me to today,
(23:56):
I've noticed Boston's gotten rid of a lot of chair
I mean, you know, seating like in downtown Boston.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
You mean like bench benches and things like that.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
I was walking back from the Boston bor Holiday party
a few years ago, and it haunts me to today.
There was a man that was shivering on the concrete.
It's at Walgreens, and I wish to God i'd given
him my coat. I was two blocks away from the car.
It was really wendy. But you know, that's why I
(24:27):
think that it's just great to have so many people
taking initiatives to help other people out, because that's what
we're here on this earth to do.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Okay, Paul Say had him Maureene from Winchester. She obviously
is a big fan of yours in terms of doing
anything for the city. I stand way in the background.
This guy isn't uh is in the foreground and is
and is making an immense difference. Mareene Paul Say had him.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Maureen Marverne, thank you for coming in and I appreciate
your car men. I think you know where Dan has
us on a number of topics tonight, So this is
going to be exciting hour on the topic of homelessness.
I mean, it is something that touches many, many, many families,
and if they're our way for people to get involved,
either by volunteering at a soup kitchen or a food
(25:20):
pantry or a shelter, there's a lot of different ways
for people to get involved. So I really appreciate that
you have gotten involved in a lot of people in
Winchester doing so as well.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
And our mess Withist Church in Wuburn also feeds the
homeless in Mouburn. There's a we need to I think,
take these empty office spaces and convert them into micro
apartments to help people. I think California has some program
going on. I saw it on TV. But anyway, thank
you for the time, and I'm really excited to see
(25:54):
about this how this AI probe is going to grow.
And I think it will really help out the students.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So thank you, Paul, Thank you, You're very welcome.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Thanks Mario, Paul. Coming back to and this is a
question that I want to get into you. Obviously, in
the nineteen eighties saw something in terms of the computer revolution,
and you immersed yourself in that and it worked out
great for you. When most of us weren't thinking about
(26:23):
the computer revolution and the internet, you perceived that you
saw the advantages to it. As you look at AI
artificial intelligence, now, do you see it as something that
somehow has to be controlled or do you think that
on its own people will learn about it and be
(26:43):
able to incorporate it into their lives. I mean, there
are some people out there who think it's going to
be a disaster for the country because jobs will be replaced.
And I'm sure you know that those theories better than anyone.
And yet there were some who were saying, hey, look,
we've had things like the internet before, for that matter,
the assembly line. When Henry Ford invented the assembly line,
(27:06):
everybody was afraid horses and carriages were going to go away.
But are you an optimist on it or.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I am an optimist If you look at if you
study the history of technology going back a thousand years.
It's true the things that you mentioned and the factories.
Every time there's a new invention, people think job loss,
but economies continue to grow. I do think AI might
be a little bit different than some of the prior
things because AI really involves thinking, not just physically doing labor,
but how people process information that AI can do in
(27:36):
many cases better then people can do on their own.
But the thing about education is AI is here. It
is not going away. If we tried to regulate and
slow it down in the US, the other country is
going to raise ahead of us. So what we need
to do is train our students how to use it ethically, responsibly,
how to use it accurately, how to use it to
become a better student. We expect that when these students
(27:58):
in BOSS public school learning AI, informed by the work
done at UMass for the last three years, that they
will go home and after school and they'll teach their
parents how to use AI. When they get hired in
local boss of businesses, they'll teach those businesses how to
use AI. So I really to look at this something.
It's great for us students, it's also gonna be good
(28:19):
for their families and good for their employers, so I'm
excited about it. We've had my collaborator on this effort
is Ellen Rubin, who's a three time CEO in Boston,
very well known in the tech scene here, and Ellen
and I have been everyone's been ringing off the hook
since we announced this two weeks ago with the mayor,
and there's other cities now who want to join in.
(28:40):
So we're now looking at collaborating with some other organizations.
We have big companies volunteering to give resources to Boston
mobile schools to make it so they have computing available,
So we're trying to figure that all out. And what
I've been telling other people this week of it last
week is we're going to open source our project. What
(29:03):
that means is we have a website which will be
launching soon. We're going to show the curriculum, the courses,
the tools we use, the budgets, how much we're spending
on each thing, and we're going to try to put
it out there as a template so that other cities
might wander the same thing, will be informed by what's
working in Boston.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
It's pretty exciting stuff. Paul English is my guest, we
have a final segment coming up. If you let to
ask a question, make a comment six one seven two
thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty. You
know when you were talking about people who have come
along and with open a with aill will teach the children,
(29:42):
The students will learn, and they'll teach older young adults
and their and their parents. I mean, I learned as
much about computers probably from my kids as they learned
from me when when they were in a place like kindergarten,
the first and second grade. Got to know your alphabet,
got to know your numbers, got to know this, got
(30:03):
to know how to add, got to know how to subtract,
pretty basic stuff. My guess Paul English. He makes it
sound simple, and it may be simpler than we've been
led to believe. We'll be back with Paul English a
final segment coming back on night Side.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Right, It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
My guess is Paul English. Paul, just since you have
a much better sense of a grasp of AI than
I'm sure ninety nine point nine percent of my audience,
certainly better than name. Look. One of the concerns I've
had and I'd love you to address it. Is that
AI and I think about like chat, GTP and all
(30:45):
of that GPT. I should say, it is only as
good as the information that is submitted and is ingested.
How do we you know if people are going to
relate rely on AI to get information? I mean, one
of the concerns that I have is are kids going
to use it to write, you know, term papers? And
(31:07):
how will we know that their actual work? I'm sure
that takes you back to your Latin school days and
me as well. But how do we control what goes
into artificial intelligence? Who's going to monitor the information that
people are going to have to rely upon?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
A couple of things there. First of all, in the classroom,
the way teachers can prevent students using AI to do
the homework is simply some of the test given classroom
with laptops clothes. So if your kids are writing big
papers but they're not to answer questions of class, they're
probably using technology not really learning the materials in their own.
As far as how AI gets information, the most interesting
(31:46):
thing happening in AI this year is the rise of
the agents, and the agents are a way to use
AI to plug into different systems. So the first versions
of chat GPT was trained on Wikipedia and Reddit and
new sources and everything you can read on the internet.
The aid is being built today in twenty twenty six.
(32:08):
People are building these custom agents that will go out
and read your email to find something you need to
be reminded of. It will look at your account, it'll
make appointments for you, it'll look at documents on your
drive and help you. It'll take meeting minutes. It really
interacts with every type of communication you're doing. You can
(32:29):
build tools that work for you, almost like as a
chief of staff. They can look at all the information
of AI, but plus being plugged into any live system
on the internet.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So in effect, you have an administrative assistant. How does
that administrative you know again a theoretical administrative assistant. How
does that administrative assistant have access to your records and
your appointment calendar. I assume you would go out and
hire some company to When you say agents.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
People are doing this. People are doing this in their
own Yeah, it's called agents. And when you install an
agent on the computer, whether you're using Gemini by Google Cloud,
by Anthropic chat Top, by open ai, whichever language model
you're using. There's a way to plug in agents on
top of that. When you install an agent, it's the
(33:23):
system is going to say, do you want to allow
this CRM to access your calendar U, S and O?
And you have to give permission for the agents for
what it can access. But when you if you're careful
about selecting which AGENC you want to install or what
agent you might be building in your own, by giving
them some access, you get tremendous return on investment.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
The the the acronym CRM. What does that's when.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Oh, customer relationship management. It's the tools that like hab
Spot here in Boston is the number one CRM company
h for midsize, small and mid sized businesses. They have
a incredibly great agentic platform they built about how people
can build agents on top of HubSpot and which integrate
with HubSpot.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Okay, and then one final question which I think people
probably are thinking about. One of the things I was
I was looking at a video the other night that
popped up so much stuff pops up on your your
computers and on your cell phones, and it was a
video of of It's a fake it was a fake video.
(34:31):
It's a video of a deer with a small deer
whose hoof was caught in the middle of a highway,
a two lane highway, and they were cars speeding by,
and the mother deer was sort of trying to be
protective and also seeming Finally someone stopped and they got
out of the car and they helped the little deer
(34:51):
escape and everybody was happy. Now that's also known as clickbait.
I mean, that's the sort of stuff that a lot
of kids are going to sit and watch. Mh is
is your do you think that you'll be able to
convince these these kids and say, look, you look at this,
and you say this is horrible. This poor deer was
sitting there with the baby deer stuck in the middle
(35:12):
of the highway and cars were buzzing back. Why didn't
the person who was taking the video of this help
the baby deer? If you think about it for a
second and you know at that point that it is
it's a deep fake or whatever term you use. Is
that the sort of knowledge that young people have to
understand that hey, I'm looking at something that's that's not
(35:34):
real and I'm wasting my time? Is that right?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I mean, you have to you have. You have to
trust your sources. You got to think about what source
do I trust. I know a lot of people turn
to you, Dan for your interpretation about what's happening in Boston,
what's happening in the news, And if they read something
from BZ, they trust BZ because it's a known media
entity that's been as a lot of reporters. I'm doing
work for years, and so I can trust something I
(35:58):
see on BZ more than I trust some random thing
I see on TikTok or on YouTube. So we have
to figure out where we're getting the source from. But
what I want to teach these kids in Bossby schools
is one how to tell when something is a deep fake,
and two how they can use AI to create their
own content. And I'm not opposed using AI of great videos.
I want it labeled that AI created this video, or
(36:20):
AIR was used as one tool for helping assemble a video.
But I think if you give kids these tools, and
you allow anyone to compose music, write poetry, write papers,
create videos, it's going to be a really exciting set
of years we have ahead of us.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And you're going to be in the forefront, that is
for sure. I so appreciate the time, Paul. This was great.
I have a much much better understanding of several things
as a result of our conversation. I hope my audience
does as well. Wish all the success in the world here,
and I hope I hope that all of these programs
that you're getting involved in and beer fruit because you
(37:02):
were very dedicated to anything that you undertake from the
time you're at Latin School right right through your professional career.
I just want to say thanks for spending the time
with us tonight. More information about AI tonight on this
hour than I've had in months here on Nightside. I
just want to say thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Thanks Anam.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
We will We'll see you again, and I like to
periodically maybe have you come back, particularly when the program
gets started this summer at UMass Boston, and want people
to be aware of it even more. We'll talk again.
Thanks so much, Paul, appreciate.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
It, right, Thank you, You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
We're welcome. When we get back, we're going to talk
about less pleasant subjects, which are going to include what
may happen to around tomorrow. We'll try to get the
latest on what is going on around the Globe tonight.
The President and others had some comments today and we
will we'll get to all of them before the before
(38:01):
the evening is out, we're going to open up phone lines.
We have the great news this weekend of the of
the return of the two American pilots safe and sound
on Easter weekend. It was indeed an Eastern miracle when
you hear what the second pilot went through. We're coming
back on Night's side right after the ten o'clock news
It's Night's Eyes with Dan Ray.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm going Easy Boston's news radio.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, welcome back every one to our and the ninth
nine o'clock hour tonight here on night Side. My name
is Dan Ray, host of the program where we are
here every Monday through Friday night from eight until midnight.
My guest this hour is a really interesting individual who
just about a little over a week ago announced that
(00:26):
he was going to give a million dollars to kickstart
the artificial intelligence program in Boston public schools. I have
known of Paul English for some time now. He and
I traveled kind of similar paths. We both went to
Boston landin school, although me much earlier in the last
century than than Paul did. And Paul's a graduate, not
(00:52):
only an undergraduate and graduate degree from UMass Boston and
as a Boston State College undergraduate. I am also a
graduate for UMass Boston. He has been much more successful
than I though, for sure. Paul English, Welcome to NIGHTSID.
How are you.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It's great to talk to Dan.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Thanks so much, my pleasure, My pleasure. I was interested
as I did a little bit more research. You grew
up in West Roxbury in what would be considered a
very traditional Boston family, the sixth of seven children, and
I guess your parents must have set a pretty high
(01:32):
standard of academic achievement. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
My parents, my mom in particular, was a pretty pretty
serious about school. She was a school teacher in Boston.
My dad was a pipefeder for Boston Gas for I
believe forty nine years, just with a couple of years
off to do a tour of Germany during World War Two.
But aside from that, he was at Boston gassa forty
nine years. And yeah, they were serious about school.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, my dad did two and a half years on
the other side of the world China, Berman India during
World War two. So yeah, very very similar. But you
also liked computers. You were someone who understood coding early,
and you had a very successful travel company that I'm
sure people will remember called Kayak, and that was a
(02:24):
tremendous success. Let's just leave it at that. But you
have now turned your good fortune and your intelligence to
some issues and concerns that probably people do not know.
You do not know of you. You were the founder
(02:45):
I did not realize you were the founder of the
the Embrace monument statue on the Boston Common, which was
dedicated to doctor Martin Luther King. How did you come
up with that idea?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I mean, yeah that I'm embarrassed how long it took
me to get it done. I created it in twenty seventeen.
It was a time in the country where there was
a lot of nationalistic, anti immigrant, racist rhetoric, and I
was visiting an MLK and Oryland in San Francisco, a
site I've been to many times and just really moved
by it and knowing that Martin Luther King Jr. And
(03:20):
Coreta Scott King met in Boston, that love stories started
here in our city. I thought, we need something like
this in Boston to really showcase and talk about the
beginning of their the love story at the beginning of
their professional career together. So that was the idea. It
took me six years to get it done. There's a
lot of help, a lot of people, a lot of meetings,
but we got it done.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Was that a lot of red tape you had to
deal with?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Or yeah, I don't want to name names, but a
lot of people were against it. They thought what we're
doing was too large, too dramatic. It didn't fit with
the Boston Common, the Boston Commons a bunch of dead
white soldiers, and this like modern art abstracting, really fitting
with the Boston Common. Some people said, go build it
(04:03):
in Roxbury, don't build it in the Boston Common, But
we have a bunually got it done and we had a
great team. I worked with Reverend Liz Walker who you
know Liz, Yeah, Liz was at that time they had
a Roxbury Presbyterian Church and she became my co founder.
And then you know, we did I think thirteen meetings
(04:24):
around the city asking people what they wanted if we
built something to memorialize Martin Luther King Junior and credit
Scott King in the relationship, what they wanted out of
the project, and we since have gone on to raise
thirty five million dollars a racial justice projects in Boston.
The project now was led by Amari Paris. Jefferies has
been an exceptional executive director for US the last few years.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
People forget that doctor King went to Boston University graduate
school and his papers, many of his papers are at
Boston University. So let me move forward if I can.
There have been other causes that you have been involved in,
For example, the annual Winter walk. You've done that for
(05:13):
ten years for the Massachusetts Homeless Coalition, and now you're
going to try to take that nationally.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
As I understand it, Yeah, we've done it for ten years.
We had thirty five hundred walkers in Boston just a
couple of weeks ago around the Boston Common We raised
about six million dollars for homeless shelters. This year we
did walks in Boston, Chicago, New York, and a few
other smaller cities. But next year we really want to
take it national, and we're rebranding ourselves from the Winter
(05:41):
Walk to the More Homes Coalition, and we really want
to highlight innovation in homeless care around the country. So
if we find something exceptional be done in Denver or
San Diego or Seattle, we're going to highlight that, give
a cash reward to the nonprofit in the most interesting
thing with homeless care, and then trying to spread the
(06:03):
knowledge across the country about where what are the innovation
is happening, Like who's doing the best job?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, that's that is interesting because it is Homeless in
America has been a problem in this country for as
long as I can remember, going back to before you
were in high school in the nineteen seventies when I
was getting out of law school that the homeless population,
(06:30):
obviously we have it exacerbated by Mass and cass here
in Greater Boston as well, and it's been a problem
in you know, in so many cities. It's complicated. There's
no easy solution. That that's a big problem you're taking on, Paul,
I'm sure you understand the magnitude of that one.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, I've been working on this for ten years, and
I'm working with doctor Jim O'Connell, who's our chair of
a nonprofit gym is from Boston Healthcare and homeless And
the thing about homelessness is we have to realize this
affects many families, and it's something that could happen to
any of us or any of our family members. The
two most common things that put people on the street
(07:13):
is either struggling with some type of mental illness and
or some type of addiction. But the thing about those
two conditions, which often can cause homelessness, they're both curable
in most cases. You know, we have the Great Mass
General here in Boston. They're the number one mental health
hospital in the US doing research on different ways of
(07:36):
cure schizophrenia, bipolar, you know, different types of mental illnesses,
and if you get someone into therapy and get them
on the right medications, they can be cured of that.
So almostness is a horrible thing to happen to a
person and to a family. But with the right services
and the right support, we can get people jobs. We've
done it. We've gotten people jobs, We've gotten them into housing,
(07:58):
and we just need more attention on it.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, I kind of imagine what it would be like
to have a family member, or for that matter, of
a child who you knew when you went to sleep
at night, you knew that that child was out on
this shoe.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
It's horrible, It's horrible.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
How did you how were you drawing to this subject homelessness?
I mean, it's a it's a problem that affects people
all across the country. Me this, you know, yeah, I
can understand a lot of but this is a huge problem.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Yeah. There's really two incidents of my life that caused
me to pay more attention to the people living in
the street. One is I had sold a company. I
had an e commerce company which I sold to into
it in California during the Dot com one. Oh, and
I made a bunch of money. And I'm someone who
grew up with no money and I so when I
made all this money, I was uncomfortable with it. I
wanted to give it away because I didn't know what
(08:49):
I would do with millions of dollars. And so I
called uh the uncle of one of my childhood friends.
His name was Thomas J. White. He was firm uh
Ran Jfy Construction Company, which is one of the big
four builders in Boston. And I met him. I was
forty at the time, he was eighty, and I said, Hey,
I made this money. I want to give it away,
(09:10):
Like what should I do? Who should I give it to?
And he said, go to Haiti and visit my friend,
doctor Paul Farmer, and then go visit a HOMSS shelter
in Boston and I'll get you set up to meet
some people there. And that really opened my eyes. I
was twenty years ago. I now look at I've given
away most of my kayake money at this point, and
the biggest recipients of my giving has been Homo shelters
(09:35):
and education in Haiti. So I feel like I'm honoring
my mentor, Tom who passed away ten years ago now.
But then the second thing that really drew me closer
to homeless causes was dropping downtown one day with my
son Michael. He's probably four years old at the time,
and we had a street light and there was a
man laying on the side of the road and my
(09:55):
son got very upset and said, Dad, is at a man?
Is he alive? He's okay? Said son actually asked me
to check on this guy, like what four year old
would do that, And he made me get out of
the car make sure the guy's okay. And it just
reminded me like up until then, when I saw someone
in homeless in the street, I'm guilty, I look the
other way and I walked past them. You know, try
not to engage. But through the eyes of a child,
(10:17):
we see a different world. And that opened my eyes
and I said maybe I should say hello to people
and talk to them. And when I started talking to
people living in the street, I learned a lot, like,
for example, one of the things that they say is
really difficult from friends of mine who are formerly homeless
now employed and you know, living in homes. But when
they told me they were in the street, they said
sometimes they would go months without someone saying their name.
(10:39):
And so one thing I do when I count on
the street right now is I'll say, hello, what's your name?
My name is Paul. You know it going to help you.
A lot of times I carry around like dunk Donuts
gip stificates that I give out, but I'll talk to people,
you'll treat them like a human.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Well, I think I think that is an incredible reach.
I know that I'm not going to compare my efforts
meek as mild as they are compared to yours. But
whenever I am and I broadcast from home for the
(11:14):
last few years remotely, but whenever I'm was at the
station at night, it was generally me, my producer and
the cleaning crews, and I always when I had a
chance to just say hi, how you doing? And I
introduced myself and I asked them what their name was.
And it was an amazing response that I got from
(11:35):
those people, just you know what they they they they
responded very well that someone, and a lot of them
didn't speak English, but they knew the concept of what
is your name? And I think that is exactly what
you were doing. And it must have had even a
greater impact on people who were out on the street
and in need of help.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It makes a big difference. And you know, if people
want to learn more about the stories, who are these
super living in the streets, you see downtown, you see
association whatever. Tracy Kidder, a beloved author of Massachusetts, has
passed away just a couple weeks ago. His last book
was called Rough Sleepers. It's about doctor Joe O'Connell. It
was a six year project. He spent six years walking
(12:20):
the streets with Jim O'Connell. And the book is incredible.
It's a page can't put it down, and just the
stories and how multifaceted and colorful these people are, what
their lives were like before they ended up on the street.
It really will open your eyes to read that book.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, I've had I've had doctor O'Connell on and I
know that the phrase rough sleepers comes not from Boston,
but from London, where that's a homeless population. My guest
is Paul English. He is described in headlines in John
Cesto's piece Last Week. Tech entrepreneur Paul English gives one
million dollars to start the artificial intelligence program in Boston
(13:03):
public schools. We get to that and and and how
we can deal as a society with artificial intelligence. Obviously
there's a lot of upside, but there's also potentially a
lot of downside. If you like to join the conversation
and ask Paul English a question or make a comment.
Six one seven thirty six one seven. My name is
(13:27):
Dan Ray, and I like every once in a while
to have an interesting Bostonian on the show. And looking
at John Chesto's piece from a couple of weeks ago,
and also knowing what Paul English has done for our
alma mater, but his alma mater, you Mass Boston, is extraordinary.
(13:48):
We'll get into all of that right after the break
here at.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Night Side Night Side with Dan Ray, I'm telling you
BZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I referenced earlier. My guess is Paul English, a tech
entrepreneur who has just given a million dollars to kickstart
at the artificial intelligence program in Boston public schools. And
in the article that John Cesto, who's a good friend
from the Boston Globe wrote about you in late March
March thirtieth, actually that you were posed a seemingly innocuous
(14:23):
question last year by Boston Magazine. You were amongst this
group of twenty one prominent local leaders, which was if
you were mayor of Boston, what's the one thing you
would do to improve the city.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And your answer was, I would make AI learning of
AI mandatory to get a degree from any Boston public
high school.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And in that conversation or that question, you came up
with the idea of developing an AI proficiency plan. You
reached out to Mayor Wu in January, and what is
going to happen. This is now also connected to UMass Boston,
where you have an institute, an AAI center the teachers.
(15:10):
This money will fund a program to get Boston teachers
to spend some time this summer doing.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
One So the million dollars is not a huge amount
of money, but it's enough to do intensive teacher training
this summer. We're going to select I hope to announce
in May that Mary Skipper, the Visionary Superintendent of bost
Public Schools, will announce the selection of the teacher Ambassadors.
(15:38):
There the one teacher from each of the high schools
in Boston, and they will be undergoing intensive training with
u MASS Boston's AI Institute, which is a three year
old program this summer, and then instruction will begin in
the high schools in September. So it's really a very
aggressive timeline. Yes, But the way to think about it
is these kids are already using AI. They're kind of
(16:00):
figuring it out for themselves at home. We want to
put a little bit of structure behind it to teach
these kids things about like the ethics of AI, things
about when AI is biased, why is it biased, how
to detect that, when AI hallucinates, when to trust AI,
what other tools you should use it with. And we're
trying to put just a little bit of formal academic
(16:20):
rigor around AI. So these kids graduate either with AI
knowledge which will help them in their college careers, or
for the kids who don't want to go to college,
not of our needs to go to college these days.
If they take a job at a local company in Boston,
how they can use their AI skills at Boston Public
High School to improve business for any local business in Boston.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Well, you said it's aggressive, It certainly is aggressive. I
would say it's on a fast track. If September is
what four or five months away to have these teachers
from each high school in Boston trained up and ready
to get the the classes that resume in September. That's
(17:03):
going to be great. The AI Institute at you Mass
Boston was funded by you three years ago, if I'm correct,
and if I'm wrong, correct me with five million dollars.
When we get back, I'd like to talk about what
that institute, which is, you know, which is a little
bit more heavily funded, that is intended to be there
(17:27):
for a while, and I want to find out from
you what the goal of that is. And also again
it raises the identity of school that I feel close to,
and I know you feel very close to you Mass Boston.
My guest is Paul English. We have to take news break.
Paul at the bottom of the hour, see what's going
(17:48):
on in the world. If you'd like to join the
conversation six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty six
one seven, nine three one ten thirty. I think that
having a guest like this talking about something that is
very much futuristic and will affect all of us in
(18:09):
some way or another, is invaluable. I appreciate his time tonight,
and you are more than welcome to join the conversation
and ask questions and make comments. We will be back
right after the news and we'll talk a little bit
about the Institute at UMass Boston, which is also supported
and funded by Paul English, dealing with artificial intelligence, and
we're where we're going to be five ten years from now.
(18:31):
I mean, it's sometimes some people thinking it's scary. I
see some reports that say that, well, we will be fine.
I'll be interested to see what Paul English thinks, because
he knows a heck of a lot more about this
than I do. We'll be and most of you as well,
back on night Side right after this.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
With Dan Ray on Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
We're delighted to be joined by tech entrepreneur as John
Cesto in the Globe described we're talking about his donation
of a million dollars to help kickstart an artificial intelligence
program for Boston public school students. Prior to that, I
believe you donated five million dollars to U Mass Boston
(19:16):
to file to establish an AI center. What what is
the goal of the AI center? Obviously, this this training
for teachers in Boston is going to be incorporated in
the U MASS Boston AI Center this summer, in anticipation
of teachers starting to teach this September. What is the
(19:38):
goal of the AI center at you Mass Boston and
are there other schools in the area who are doing
the same thing or is the program at U MASS
Boston unique at the moment?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
What we did We started discussing plans for an AI
curriculm that you Mass four years ago, actually before AI
got super super hot. We saw that a big changes
were coming. We wanted our students U MASS to be
prepared for this. The thing that was unique about U
Mass as the largest research public research university in New
(20:13):
England and the most diverse college in New England. But
what we saw is that an opportunity to teach AI,
not to compete as science students, where traditionally you had
to study computer decigence to learn about AI. We wanted
to teach it to every student in your mouse, whether
you're a nursing student, education student, climate student, And we
(20:36):
wanted to experiment if we could teach every student across
the campus, anyone who wanted to study AI. We had
a course for them and then we put these students
together in teams. What could they invent? And so U
Mass has been running a hackathon every semester. We are
student teams and there'll be a nursing student with a
marketing student, you know, with a math student, and they're
(20:58):
building apps and it's incredibly impress of what's getting done
the other thing. In addition to focusing on cross functional,
collaborative team work with AI to all students, UMass also
has a really big focus on the ethics of AI.
You know, when should AI be used? When should it
(21:18):
not be used? People cheating when they use AI? How
can AI lead you down the rung paths sometimes? And
when teaching the students that U MASS how to have
a critical eye and know where and how they should
use AI to become better students and to become more
valuable employees when a enter the workforce.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Wow, let me get a caller a two in here,
and then I want to get from you your view
of is AI something that we should look at as
a threat or as an opportunity? Let me get a
caller of two in here. Just to incorporate some of
the callers, let me go to Maureene in Winchester. Maureene,
(21:58):
welcome your first This Hour with Paul English on Marien.
Where wouldn't Maureen be Rob.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I just want to say that we are so lucky
and fortunate to have people like you, Dan and Paul
to be part of the Boston Saying to help innovate
and and help everybody grow. I think AI has more
benefits than negatives. I do support AI. I use it
(22:29):
a little bit. My sister is a computer scientists. Since
the eighties, she made me use computers, learned computer Since then,
I've gabbled a little bit en coding myself, and there
are she's leading the AI efforts at her current employer,
and there's definitely more pros and cons and I think
(22:49):
we shouldn't be afraid of it. We need to learn
how to embrace it. And like Paul was saying about
the ethics. So that's that's my opinion. And I think
it's really great that Paul is doing tons of social work,
philothropic work and work with the homeless. I just learned
(23:12):
somebody in my church in Winchester was homeless and he
does the walk, you know, for the homeless. And another
lady goes to South Station every Wednesday night she collects
items from people in our free cycle and donates it.
And a lady that in another church. She goes and
(23:33):
counsels to the homeless and South Station and Harvard Square,
and I've connected with some of those people on Facebook,
and you know, sometimes they pass away and I've been
invited to some of their funerals. I haven't been any,
just more to timing, but they do need somebody to
talk to. And one thing that haunts me to today,
(23:56):
I've noticed Boston's gotten rid of a lot of chair
I mean, you know, seating like in downtown Boston.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
You mean like bench benches and things like that.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
I was walking back from the Boston bor Holiday party
a few years ago, and it haunts me to today.
There was a man that was shivering on the concrete.
It's at Walgreens, and I wish to God i'd given
him my coat. I was two blocks away from the car.
It was really wendy. But you know, that's why I
(24:27):
think that it's just great to have so many people
taking initiatives to help other people out, because that's what
we're here on this earth to do.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Okay, Paul Say had him Maureene from Winchester. She obviously
is a big fan of yours in terms of doing
anything for the city. I stand way in the background.
This guy isn't uh is in the foreground and is
and is making an immense difference. Mareene Paul Say had him.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Maureen Marverne, thank you for coming in and I appreciate
your car men. I think you know where Dan has
us on a number of topics tonight, So this is
going to be exciting hour on the topic of homelessness.
I mean, it is something that touches many, many, many families,
and if they're our way for people to get involved,
either by volunteering at a soup kitchen or a food
(25:20):
pantry or a shelter, there's a lot of different ways
for people to get involved. So I really appreciate that
you have gotten involved in a lot of people in
Winchester doing so as well.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
And our mess Withist Church in Wuburn also feeds the
homeless in Mouburn. There's a we need to I think,
take these empty office spaces and convert them into micro
apartments to help people. I think California has some program
going on. I saw it on TV. But anyway, thank
you for the time, and I'm really excited to see
(25:54):
about this how this AI probe is going to grow.
And I think it will really help out the students.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So thank you, Paul, Thank you, You're very welcome.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Thanks Mario, Paul. Coming back to and this is a
question that I want to get into you. Obviously, in
the nineteen eighties saw something in terms of the computer revolution,
and you immersed yourself in that and it worked out
great for you. When most of us weren't thinking about
(26:23):
the computer revolution and the internet, you perceived that you
saw the advantages to it. As you look at AI
artificial intelligence, now, do you see it as something that
somehow has to be controlled or do you think that
on its own people will learn about it and be
(26:43):
able to incorporate it into their lives. I mean, there
are some people out there who think it's going to
be a disaster for the country because jobs will be replaced.
And I'm sure you know that those theories better than anyone.
And yet there were some who were saying, hey, look,
we've had things like the internet before, for that matter,
the assembly line. When Henry Ford invented the assembly line,
(27:06):
everybody was afraid horses and carriages were going to go away.
But are you an optimist on it or.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I am an optimist If you look at if you
study the history of technology going back a thousand years.
It's true the things that you mentioned and the factories.
Every time there's a new invention, people think job loss,
but economies continue to grow. I do think AI might
be a little bit different than some of the prior
things because AI really involves thinking, not just physically doing labor,
but how people process information that AI can do in
(27:36):
many cases better then people can do on their own.
But the thing about education is AI is here. It
is not going away. If we tried to regulate and
slow it down in the US, the other country is
going to raise ahead of us. So what we need
to do is train our students how to use it ethically, responsibly,
how to use it accurately, how to use it to
become a better student. We expect that when these students
(27:58):
in BOSS public school learning AI, informed by the work
done at UMass for the last three years, that they
will go home and after school and they'll teach their
parents how to use AI. When they get hired in
local boss of businesses, they'll teach those businesses how to
use AI. So I really to look at this something.
It's great for us students, it's also gonna be good
(28:19):
for their families and good for their employers, so I'm
excited about it. We've had my collaborator on this effort
is Ellen Rubin, who's a three time CEO in Boston,
very well known in the tech scene here, and Ellen
and I have been everyone's been ringing off the hook
since we announced this two weeks ago with the mayor,
and there's other cities now who want to join in.
(28:40):
So we're now looking at collaborating with some other organizations.
We have big companies volunteering to give resources to Boston
mobile schools to make it so they have computing available,
So we're trying to figure that all out. And what
I've been telling other people this week of it last
week is we're going to open source our project. What
(29:03):
that means is we have a website which will be
launching soon. We're going to show the curriculum, the courses,
the tools we use, the budgets, how much we're spending
on each thing, and we're going to try to put
it out there as a template so that other cities
might wander the same thing, will be informed by what's
working in Boston.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
It's pretty exciting stuff. Paul English is my guest, we
have a final segment coming up. If you let to
ask a question, make a comment six one seven two
thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty. You
know when you were talking about people who have come
along and with open a with aill will teach the children,
(29:42):
The students will learn, and they'll teach older young adults
and their and their parents. I mean, I learned as
much about computers probably from my kids as they learned
from me when when they were in a place like kindergarten,
the first and second grade. Got to know your alphabet,
got to know your numbers, got to know this, got
(30:03):
to know how to add, got to know how to subtract,
pretty basic stuff. My guess Paul English. He makes it
sound simple, and it may be simpler than we've been
led to believe. We'll be back with Paul English a
final segment coming back on night Side.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Right, It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
My guess is Paul English. Paul, just since you have
a much better sense of a grasp of AI than
I'm sure ninety nine point nine percent of my audience,
certainly better than name. Look. One of the concerns I've
had and I'd love you to address it. Is that
AI and I think about like chat, GTP and all
(30:45):
of that GPT. I should say, it is only as
good as the information that is submitted and is ingested.
How do we you know if people are going to
relate rely on AI to get information? I mean, one
of the concerns that I have is are kids going
to use it to write, you know, term papers? And
(31:07):
how will we know that their actual work? I'm sure
that takes you back to your Latin school days and
me as well. But how do we control what goes
into artificial intelligence? Who's going to monitor the information that
people are going to have to rely upon?
Speaker 2 (31:24):
A couple of things there. First of all, in the classroom,
the way teachers can prevent students using AI to do
the homework is simply some of the test given classroom
with laptops clothes. So if your kids are writing big
papers but they're not to answer questions of class, they're
probably using technology not really learning the materials in their own.
As far as how AI gets information, the most interesting
(31:46):
thing happening in AI this year is the rise of
the agents, and the agents are a way to use
AI to plug into different systems. So the first versions
of chat GPT was trained on Wikipedia and Reddit and
new sources and everything you can read on the internet.
The aid is being built today in twenty twenty six.
(32:08):
People are building these custom agents that will go out
and read your email to find something you need to
be reminded of. It will look at your account, it'll
make appointments for you, it'll look at documents on your
drive and help you. It'll take meeting minutes. It really
interacts with every type of communication you're doing. You can
(32:29):
build tools that work for you, almost like as a
chief of staff. They can look at all the information
of AI, but plus being plugged into any live system
on the internet.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So in effect, you have an administrative assistant. How does
that administrative you know again a theoretical administrative assistant. How
does that administrative assistant have access to your records and
your appointment calendar. I assume you would go out and
hire some company to When you say agents.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
People are doing this. People are doing this in their
own Yeah, it's called agents. And when you install an
agent on the computer, whether you're using Gemini by Google Cloud,
by Anthropic chat Top, by open ai, whichever language model
you're using. There's a way to plug in agents on
top of that. When you install an agent, it's the
(33:23):
system is going to say, do you want to allow
this CRM to access your calendar U, S and O?
And you have to give permission for the agents for
what it can access. But when you if you're careful
about selecting which AGENC you want to install or what
agent you might be building in your own, by giving
them some access, you get tremendous return on investment.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
The the the acronym CRM. What does that's when.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Oh, customer relationship management. It's the tools that like hab
Spot here in Boston is the number one CRM company
h for midsize, small and mid sized businesses. They have
a incredibly great agentic platform they built about how people
can build agents on top of HubSpot and which integrate
with HubSpot.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Okay, and then one final question which I think people
probably are thinking about. One of the things I was
I was looking at a video the other night that
popped up so much stuff pops up on your your
computers and on your cell phones, and it was a
video of of It's a fake it was a fake video.
(34:31):
It's a video of a deer with a small deer
whose hoof was caught in the middle of a highway,
a two lane highway, and they were cars speeding by,
and the mother deer was sort of trying to be
protective and also seeming Finally someone stopped and they got
out of the car and they helped the little deer
(34:51):
escape and everybody was happy. Now that's also known as clickbait.
I mean, that's the sort of stuff that a lot
of kids are going to sit and watch. Mh is
is your do you think that you'll be able to
convince these these kids and say, look, you look at this,
and you say this is horrible. This poor deer was
sitting there with the baby deer stuck in the middle
(35:12):
of the highway and cars were buzzing back. Why didn't
the person who was taking the video of this help
the baby deer? If you think about it for a
second and you know at that point that it is
it's a deep fake or whatever term you use. Is
that the sort of knowledge that young people have to
understand that hey, I'm looking at something that's that's not
(35:34):
real and I'm wasting my time? Is that right?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
I mean, you have to you have. You have to
trust your sources. You got to think about what source
do I trust. I know a lot of people turn
to you, Dan for your interpretation about what's happening in Boston,
what's happening in the news, And if they read something
from BZ, they trust BZ because it's a known media
entity that's been as a lot of reporters. I'm doing
work for years, and so I can trust something I
(35:58):
see on BZ more than I trust some random thing
I see on TikTok or on YouTube. So we have
to figure out where we're getting the source from. But
what I want to teach these kids in Bossby schools
is one how to tell when something is a deep fake,
and two how they can use AI to create their
own content. And I'm not opposed using AI of great videos.
I want it labeled that AI created this video, or
(36:20):
AIR was used as one tool for helping assemble a video.
But I think if you give kids these tools, and
you allow anyone to compose music, write poetry, write papers,
create videos, it's going to be a really exciting set
of years we have ahead of us.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
And you're going to be in the forefront, that is
for sure. I so appreciate the time, Paul. This was great.
I have a much much better understanding of several things
as a result of our conversation. I hope my audience
does as well. Wish all the success in the world here,
and I hope I hope that all of these programs
that you're getting involved in and beer fruit because you
(37:02):
were very dedicated to anything that you undertake from the
time you're at Latin School right right through your professional career.
I just want to say thanks for spending the time
with us tonight. More information about AI tonight on this
hour than I've had in months here on Nightside. I
just want to say thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Thanks Anam.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
We will We'll see you again, and I like to
periodically maybe have you come back, particularly when the program
gets started this summer at UMass Boston, and want people
to be aware of it even more. We'll talk again.
Thanks so much, Paul, appreciate.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
It, right, Thank you, You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
We're welcome. When we get back, we're going to talk
about less pleasant subjects, which are going to include what
may happen to around tomorrow. We'll try to get the
latest on what is going on around the Globe tonight.
The President and others had some comments today and we
will we'll get to all of them before the before
(38:01):
the evening is out, we're going to open up phone lines.
We have the great news this weekend of the of
the return of the two American pilots safe and sound
on Easter weekend. It was indeed an Eastern miracle when
you hear what the second pilot went through. We're coming
back on Night's side right after the ten o'clock news
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