>> Tonight, the good news about being black in America.

Ebony K Williams shares why Black Americans need to embrace their identity and not focus on the negatives.

Is it teaching or cheating?

?

Chat GPT is revolutionizing artificial intelligence.

But should it be allowed in class?

"MetroFocus" starts right now.

♪ >> This is "MetroFocus."

with Raphael Pi Roman, Jack Ford, and Jenna Flanagan.

Jen -- MetroFocus is made possible by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.

Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.

The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Jody and John Arnhold, Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Estate of Roland Karlen, The JPB Foundation.

Jenna: Good evening.

Welcome to "MetroFocus."

for too long, too much of the discussion about being Black in America has been centered around the negative.

While Black Americans have always experienced particular difficulties navigating this country's racist structures and beliefs, blackness is not and should not only be something to lament.

It should be something to be celebrated loudly and proudly.

That is the argument Ebony K Williams makes in her new book, "Bet on Black: The good news about being black in America today."

She discusses how we are living in a unique time that offers unprecedented access to an array of tools to alter our blackness however we see fit and wherever we see fit.

And joining me now is Eboni Williams, in addition to being a television and podcast personality, she is author of "Bet on Black: the good news about being Black in America today."

Welcome to "MetroFocus."

Eboni: Thank you for having me and for that incredible introduction.

Jenna: Absolutely.

Usually when we talk about books or movies, I want to get into the title a little bit.

I think it harkens back to a line some people might remember from a movie.

Tell me, what was the inspiration behind the title of the book?

Eboni: The "Bet on Black" part, it is exactly as you referenced, that is a pop-culture reference.

As the kids would say, if you know, you know.

That is from a movie.

It is also a colloquial saying many people use broadly.

It is the subtitle for me that was very important for me to get right.

"The good news about being Black in America today and to tether that alongside the literal word Black.

As you said, I do make the argument in this book, and I do feel wholeheartedly that Black ness is often perceived as a trauma story, only something to see as downtrodden or woeful.

And while certainly there are very unique devastations around how Blackness has been constructed globally and in America, that is not at all close to our experience.

It is Blackness, for me, I call it my superpower.

Is the place from which my end -- my identity most strongly arrives.

It is where my confidence and swagger is centered, and it is something I'm extremely grateful for, that I get to be Black in this world and this country.

Jenna: It almost feels like, not only the intention behind the book, but the title and the intention both harken back to the period where "I'm Black and I'm proud" something people were saying.

I'm wondering, there is a time and place for everything, and I'm wondering if the recent events we have seen, especially since the onset of the pandemic with black and brown people being disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 virus, Black lives matter, say their names, George Floyd, all of these things, were those all inspirations for you to say, yes, there is all of this trauma, but there is also this good stuff too?

Eboni: Exactly that.

Everything you just said, and we can add on lack women dying twice as likely as white women in childbirth.

The issues around our populace and health care disparities.

All of it.

You name it.

And yet, I find joy in my blackness, and I see joy in my comrades across this nation.

And I know it is something deeply both academically, as I talked about in the book, I have a degree in Black studies.

I understand Blackness from an economic lens and a cultural lens.

I'm almost 40 years old, I have been Black my whole life.

I felt the need in this moment, because of everything you laid out, to reframe, to challenge the framing of Blackness.

Because we are generalists and we work in this field, and we know the headlines better than most.

Even if you are a consumer, the headlines around weight -- around the ways Blackness are talked about, it can seem extremely unilateral and extremely tragic for lack of a better term.

And I am not comfortable nor am I willing, as a Black Blackness American -- eight Black American who is appreciative around the broadness, the broad scope of Blackness and the Black experience, not on my watch while I allow that narrative of black trauma to take hold, without challenging and pushing back in presenting a good news story about being Black in America today.

Jenna: That is always something we try to focus on on "MetroFocus."

There is no one ubiquitous Black American or African-American experience.

I want to get into the good stuff that you were talking about.

They might not be at the forefront of people's minds because of so many of the challenging sometimes heartbreaking headlines.

Let's talk about the positives that are happening right now that are good?

Eboni: That are good.

Underneath the statistic that is very real around, let's say, Black homeownership.

They were a lot -- the reality is Black homeownership rates hovers around 42%, maybe 38%, depending on who is counting.

Jenna, that number is exactly where we were as a people with homeownership in 1964 when the fair housing discrimination act was passed.

That looks like a bad news story.

The reframing I do in the book, and I talk about the good news story, I talk about how I don't think it is -- I think it is hard to be free when you don't own anything.

I'm making an argument to advocate for Black people in America to prioritize ownership of assets of any kind.

I'm speaking to homeownership as one example, I recently purchased my condo here in Manhattan in Harlem.

But I'm talking about collaborative homeownership.

It is New York City, it is very expensive to buy here.

One bedroom, one bath is $1 million.

Maybe an paying rent in Manhattan but maybe I have tenants in Tennessee or a place that has a more affordable price point.

The good news under that sobering statistic of Black homeownership is that we have resources and tools today that we did not have in 1968 when fair housing was first passed.

We can be creative, mobile and we can avail ourselves to programming's, financing, and collaborative efforts to access ownership and -- in creative ways.

Jenna: The other things I thought was interesting and I mentioned in the intro, the celebration of Blackness wherever, however you want.

Not to focus on the negative, but we have done some pieces where we have had people across the African DS borough talk about the fact that they don't feel comfortable to do that in all spaces.

I'm wondering if you can unpack that no, you can be proud and out loud about who you are, wherever you see fit.

Eboni: The very best example to what you are speaking to now is the very newly minted NCAA women's collegiate basketball champion, Angel raise.

This is a young woman who, if you are a Black American or you know or love a black American, and you want to know what celebrating Blackness in your own construction looks like, in real time, when and how and where you see fit, look at Angel Reese.

This woman is unapologetic about who she is and she speaks about the fact that her aesthetic as a Black woman is not as palatable.

She speaks about her rhetoric, her dialect being particularly Black and not necessarily being so comfortable to some.

And she is unbothered, in a word.

She is persistent, she is insistent on showing up in her Black skin as the champion she is.

I love to see it.

I think this generation right in front of us is really modeling what the celebration of Blackness can look like.

Jenna: And it is important while celebrating that Blackness to bear in mind, the people who laid the path, or laid the groundwork to do that.

.

Because of course, when I think of Angel, I believe is her name, I also think of women before her like, Flo Joe.

Eboni: Yeah.

Absolutely.

I'm thinking about Wilma Rudolph, I'm thinking about all of these titans of industry.

What is that brother?

Author Ash.

You are correct.

In the book, I take a lot of time going back to bring us forward.

I open each chapter of the book with a quote that I think centers the theme of the chapter, and often cited in the book are going to be my favorites, James Baldwin.

Eyesight a ton of James Baldwin, I know.

A ton of Frederick Douglass.

This is because of what you just spoke to.

The fact is, what we get to do now as Black Americans living today, we only have this privilege because of everything that has been done on our behalf by the ancestors.

Jenna: Do you see a point in time -- another thing a lot of black Americans have become very adept at, and that is code switching.

Because there is still theoretically, seemingly a time and place where it is acceptable to be unapologetically Black, that that is something a lot of people have had to master.

Do you see that as something that could be perhaps another part of the past in the soon future?

Eboni: I do.

I know that can be a hot take.

I have made the personal decision very recently to no longer code switch.

I just refused to do it.

I'm not advising everyone at home to adopt this methodology.

It depends on the, frankly, your risk tolerance.

It is a risk.

When you have the audacity to decentered whiteness, to D center hetero normalcy, to D center patriarchy, anything outside of traditional American norms, you are, by act, protesting peer that is a protest.

That is something that is going to be met with reaction and consequence likely.

You have to assess for yourself, depending on where you are academically, financially, even geographically, what are the risk associations with choosing to push back on white comforts and normalcy's?

And not adhere to code switching?

And make that choice for yourself in a way that feels good to you.

But I personally think that, unlike previous times in our nation, it is at least an option to opt out of code switching.

That is part of the good news about being Black in America today.

Jenna: We have a minute left.

I realize there is no way to answer this question in a minute.

I'm sure people watching and they are like, she is familiar but I don't know where.

You are a cast member on real housewives of New York.

The reason I bring that up is because that had been an all white cast, which is ironic because New York is a diversity.

During your time on the show, you did push back.

What was that experience like?

Eboni: I talk about it a lot in chapter three of the but, so you will be able to get more there.

That experience was trying, difficult, and ultimately very liberating.

I found a lot of liberation in my form of protest, and that is essentially what it became during my insistence on centering my Black identity as a housewife is the historic first Black housewife.

Many of my cast mates met that protest with ire.

I was able to stand at 10 toes down and show up in my allness.

Everything this world and society tells me and women that look like us that we are not deserving of or qualify for.

I am very clear to say I am done working half as much -- twice as hard for half as much.

It is now time for me to get everything.

Jenna: I think that is a powerful note to leave it on.

Ebony K Williams --Eboni K. Williams, thank you for joining me on "MetroFocus."

The good news about being black in America, and we look forward to see what you do next.

Eboni: Thank you, Jenna.

Jenna: ♪ absolutely.

♪ >> A new artificial intelligence program, chat GPT, is sweeping the Internet.

The free software is capable of doing almost everything from writing essays, film scripts, and poetry, to passing graduate level law and business school exams.

This revolutionary software is concerning for some educators who feel students could use it and cheat on school assignments.

New York City is one of several large wool districts -- school districts that have banned students from using chat GPT as officials review the pros and cons of giving students access to such a powerful resource.

While it has its critics, there are other educators who feel the software can be an incredibly useful tool for our students, so long as we teach them how to use it the right way.

Joining us tonight with more on jet -- on chat GPT, he is not only encouraging his students, but requiring it in some fashion, Dr. Ethan Mollica.

He is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Welcome.

Thank you for joining us.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> This is such a fascinating topic.

I know I mention you are an associate professor.

I have been at Yale for 15 years.

I am waiting to see what my final papers are going to look like here.

This is an especially relevant conversation for me to have with you and all of our viewers to watch.

Let's start at the beginning.

Give us a brief overview of what this is, when we are talking about chat GPT, and what its abilities are?

>> It is often called AI.

But AI is an imprecise term that means a lot of things.

Chat GPT was specifically called a large language model.

Think of it as an auto complete meets a robot.

It basically can create text for you based on what you ask it, based on having learned almost everything on the Internet through.

.

October 2021 >> It is a concept that is hard to get not just your arms around but your brain around.

How new is this?

>> These large language models have been around for a few years.

There was a model called GPT three, around for a 3 -- around for three and a half.

It produced C minus essays.

That was updated at the end of November, along with chat GPT and GPT 3.5.

Suddenly, even though the technology is the same, the size of the model, something magical happened.

The capabilities went up from mediocre to absolutely stunning.

>> I'm going to talk in a few minutes about the objections and I mentioned some.

There was an initial reaction amongst educators saying, this can't be good for our students.

But let's focus on your view of this.

And you concluded that this can be a valuable tool.

Why do you think that is so?

>> What is fascinating about using this, and the thing I recommend, there is a free version available and everybody should try this out.

And not just for a few minutes.

You have to spend an hour to get it.

There are a bunch of guides and stuff.

What you will find is for writing, it suddenly does all sorts of amazing things.

To give you a couple examples, and a lot of people are not great at generating ideas.

Chat GPT will be happy to give you 50 ideas for a good project to do.

Some of them will be great.

It can synthesize pieces of information, and ask it to summarize it.

You can put your writing in it and ask it to improve your writing or make it punchier.

It feels like that is something we should incorporate, especially in things like a business school class, rather than something we need to fight.

>> Explain some of your courses.

The subject matter that you teach, and how you feel you can incorporate that in a safe, academic fashion.

>> Let me hello -- let me tell you how I could stop it.

I started using chat GPT from the beginning because I have been playing with these AI systems.

It came out on a Thursday.

I taught my entrepreneur class on Tuesday.

I introduce the class to it.

I said, let's talk about this.

By the end of the first class, one of my students had created a working demo for their entrepreneurial idea with working code, using a coding library they had never used before, they had three venture capital offers that night.

By Thursday, 60% had used the chat to do something.

Tell them what was wrong with a test result.

It is being used everywhere.

Cheating is one possibility but it is not the only one.

I require it all over.

I expect my students to generate ideas, help them write essays.

I have increased the amount of things they have to write, all because this tool makes it easy to do so.

>> We see oftentimes folks suggesting a comparison.

Saying look, don't be alarmed, this as progress.

Go back to the days when I was in high school, even college, although I didn't take a lot of math courses.

There was a time when you could not use calculators.

In this was an earth shattering moment for some traditionalists when all of a sudden folks said, why can't you use calculators in your class to help you?

Is that a viable parallel for what we are seeing?

>> I think in the short term, very much so.

In the short-term, this is like a calculator.

If you are taking a writing class where composition matters, like a calculator, you need to use a blue book and handwrite things.

For classes where you are supposed to use advanced math or writing, we can do more of that because we have a calculator.

In the short term, that's true.

In the long-term term, the questions are, this is great for the classroom.

What does this mean for the real world?

That is a bigger issue.

>> I have seen some observations made, and this is amongst even reporters of this idea.

I may have seen it on the website for open AI who developed this.

They say there is caution here as to how this comes out.

One of the suggestions I saw was the ability of the human mind to craft words and thoughts and ideas.

And perhaps this is not at that level.

What do you think about that?

>> Not to get too ahead of the game, but just yesterday, I was given access to the newest AI witches open AI, on some sort of steroids, attached to the Internet.

I was able to ask it to write a description of someone eating cake.

Then I said, go look up Kurt Vonnegut's rules for good writing and apply that good writing style to the essay on Cake, and it completely rewrote it and it justified how it made all the changes and made it a murder mystery story.

You told me it needs to have drama and sarcasm.

I was blown away.

Is it as good as?

The best human writers know -- is it as good as the best human writers?

No.

We have a progression that is a fast one.

I'm all for human ingenuity playing a role.

I think it does.

I think we should be cautious about feeling comfortable at what the systems do today is what they will keep doing.

>> Let's talk about the objections.

What are you hearing from your colleagues that may well resonate with you and certainly with them, as to why they are, to some degree or other, uncomfortable with the utilization of this program?

>> Think it breaks down a few things.

One is the capabilities itself.

Chat GPT and all large language models lie.

They lie a lot.

They lie shamelessly and convincingly.

>> Are they politicians?

Is that what they have created?

Sorry.

That was an editorial comment.

I could not help myself.

>> You are not the first person to point that out.

They don't do it with intent.

They hallucinate.

They don't know what is true or what it is -- or what isn't.

It is generating information that is plausible.

It is impossible, use different AI systems that trained my Twitter feed to generate -- I asked it questions to answer on my behalf.

It started citing papers that seem so possible, that I thought I may have written them and not remembered from 10 years ago.

But they were fake.

It makes up information.

That is the first problem.

>> And that is troubling.

>> At is troubling.

What I do in my classes, I say, if you are not an expert, you need to be careful on the topic.

And I will grade you on the accuracy of your results.

So you have to be aware that it hallucinates and you need to use that to your advantage or avoid it.

>> I will give you an illustration.

For me, you are having bit -- various models, I teach an undergraduate seminar on famous trials.

As our final project, each of my students need to find a trial that is out there, not the 12 we have talked about, but others.

Then they have to write about it, they have to write about why it was significant the legal implications, the political implications, social implications, historical consequences.

Essentially why it should be viewed as of value.

To them, and maybe to others.

Is that something that you think this would lend itself to?

Or is that something I should be fearful of?

>> I would say a week ago that that is something you should embrace because it would not be able to do that sophisticated analysis.

But you as an experienced professor would know that it was not.

Some of our students are -- English is a second language, third, fourth.

We tend to say it writing is intelligence.

It is not always.

I would say great, it is a tool to help them become better writers.

They will produce more content than they did without being thoughtful about it and you will not be able to judge quality based on the writing.

But I will tell you that being AI is capable of doing analysis where you say, find a case, here is the assignment, write me 2000 words about it, and it does something incredible with that.

The world is changing quickly.

My advice last week would be different this week.

.

I think we need to stay tuned.

>> That is a good indicator at how quickly the world is changing.

My last question, it has been a fascinating conversation, we could talk for hours.

The world is changing rapidly.

Five years from now, in your classroom, my classroom, in elementary school classrooms, what is this going to look like?

>> I don't know.

I think if anyone tells you they know -- intelligence -- technology is increasing.

I was able to create a complete deepfake lecture of myself where I did not do anything.

The AI created the speech, I said, write a speech like Ethan Malik and it did.

Then I fed it into another system that created the speech.

Another system generated animated images of me talking from a single photograph.

I created an animated lecture with no work.

That is now.

What does that mean for the future?

It is hard to know.

Usually we say technology does -- technology does not change stuff that much.

.

I don't know.

The pace of change is fast.

I don't think anyone can give you an accurate prediction.

Nobody saw this coming in the first place.

I think things will mostly be the same.

But there is a lot of interesting stuff happening I have never seen before in all of my career.

♪ >> Thanks for tuning into "MetroFocus."

You can take our award-winning program with you wherever you go with MetroFocus, the podcast.

Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcastss so you never miss an episode.

Or ask your smart speaker to play MetroFocus, the podcast.

Also on the NPR one app.

♪ >> MetroFocus is made possible by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.

Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation.

The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund.

Bernard and Denise Schwartz.

Barbara Hope Zuckerberg.

And by Jody and John Arnhold, Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Estate of Roland Karlen.