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  • Chinese Agentic Platform Manus Faces Doubts About Its Technological Capabilities

    Chinese Agentic Platform Manus Faces Doubts About Its Technological Capabilities

    IBL News | New York

    Chinese AI agentic platform Manus, which has generated much hype, is facing doubts about its technological capabilities. Significantly, few people could test the product after its surge in popularity owing to an apparent shortage of server capacity.

    Manus has gained attention for its claimed ability to handle complex tasks. Investors are hailing it as another breakthrough following the low-cost AI models from DeepSeek.

    The head of product at Hugging Face called Manus “the most impressive AI tool I’ve ever tried.” AI policy researcher Dean Ball described Manus as the “most sophisticated computer using AI.” In just a few days, the official Discord server for Manus grew to over 138,000 members.

    Manus wasn’t developed from scratch. The platform uses a combination of existing and fine-tuned AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude and Alibaba’s Qwen, to perform tasks such as drafting research reports and analyzing financial filings.

    On its website, Butterfly Effect — the Chinese startup behind Manus — gives a few wild examples of what the platform can accomplish, from buying real estate to programming video games.

    Also, this month, Manus announced a partnership with the team behind tech giant Alibaba’s Qwen AI models, a move that could bolster the AI start-up.

    Manus AI, which has offices in Beijing and Wuhan, has marketed its product by completing dozens of tasks for users on X for free. Its launch quickly went viral on Chinese social media, as many drew parallels with the Hangzhou-based chatbot DeepSeek.

    However, the AI agent remains accessible by invitation only, and the company’s website struggles with increasing malfunctions, it admitted on X.

    • Forbes: China’s Autonomous Agent, Manus, Changes Everything

  • Johns Hopkins University Will Eliminate 2,000 Jobs After Losing $800 Million in Federal Funding

    Johns Hopkins University Will Eliminate 2,000 Jobs After Losing $800 Million in Federal Funding

    IBL News | New York

    Johns Hopkins University said on Thursday that it would eliminate more than 2,000 jobs in the U.S. and abroad after it lost $800 million in federal funding from USAID for its international programs due to the Trump administration’s steep cuts.

    Johns Hopkins appears to be the most profoundly affected of the major research institutions, reeling from cuts to federal money that their faculties depend on to conduct research studies and run labs.

    The layoffs—the largest in the university’s history—will involve 247 domestic workers for the university based in Baltimore and an affiliated center.

    The cuts will affect the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health Medical School and an affiliated nonprofit, Jhpiego, which focuses on maternal health and disease prevention. Another 1,975 positions will be cut in 44 countries.

    These layoffs come as President Donald Trump continues his efforts to reshape the federal government, including gutting USAID. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced earlier this week that the Trump administration is canceling 83% of the agency’s programs and intends to fold its remaining programs under the State Department.

    Last week, the Trump administration pulled $400 million from Columbia University, canceling grants and contracts.

    Higher education institutions nationwide are uneasy about the future of federal funding in the second Trump Administration.

  • OpenAI Releases ‘Responses API’ to Help Businesses Build AI Agents

    OpenAI Releases ‘Responses API’ to Help Businesses Build AI Agents

    IBL News | New York

    OpenAI released yesterday new tools designed to help developers build custom AI agents that can perform web searches, scan through company files, and navigate websites, similar to Operator.

    The tools are part of OpenAI’s new Responses API, which effectively replaces its Assistants API.

    This launch occurs amid the agent hype phenomenon, with a new agent platform called Manus developed by a Chinese startup called Butterfly Effect.

    Earlier this year, OpenAI introduced two AI agents in ChatGPT: Operator, which navigates websites on your behalf, and Deep Research, which compiles research reports. Both tools offered a glimpse at what agentic technology can achieve.

    The Responses API also includes a file search utility that can quickly scan across files in a company’s databases to retrieve information. In addition, the model generates mouse and keyboard actions, allowing developers to automate computer use tasks like data entry and app workflows.

    Alongside the Responses API, OpenAI is releasing an open-source toolkit called the Agents SDK. This toolkit offers developers free tools to integrate models with their internal systems, implement safeguards, and monitor AI agent activities for debugging and optimization purposes. The Agents SDK is a follow-up to OpenAI’s Swarm, a framework for multi-agent orchestration that the company released late last year.

    In sum, OpenAI’s new set of APIs and tools for agentic applications are:
  • The Department of Education Fires 1,300 Workers, as a First Step to Shutting Down the Agency

    The Department of Education Fires 1,300 Workers, as a First Step to Shutting Down the Agency

    IBL News | New York

    The Department of Education initiated mass layoffs yesterday, reducing its workforce by nearly 50% to over 1,315 workers. Linda McMahon, the Education Secretary, said this is the first step to shutting down the whole department. [Video with the statement]

    The fired staff will be placed on administrative leave starting March 21 and receive full pay and benefits until June 9.

    Currently, the Department of Education manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement, and enforces civil rights laws in schools.

    In addition to these laid-off workers, 572 accepted separation packages offered recently, and 63 probationary workers were terminated last month.

    The cuts were considered an additional move by President Trump, who announced it would dismantle the department soon, even though it could not be closed without Congress’s approval.

    “Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” Linda McMahon, the Education Secretary, said in a statement.

    She explained the changes would not affect student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, or competitive grantmaking.

    Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for the second Trump term, laid out a detailed plan for eliminating the department and moving much of the agency’s work to other arms of the federal government. Student aid, for example, would be handled by the Treasury Department, vocational education by the Labor Department, and disability education by the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Sheria Smith, President of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, representing more than 2,800 workers at the Education Department, said the Trump Administration had “no respect for the thousands of workers who have dedicated their careers to serving their fellow Americans” and vowed to fight the cuts.

    Becky Pringle, President of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, said the changes would drain job training programs and increase costs of higher education.

  • OpenAI Will Bring ChatGPT to 500,00 Students and Faculty at The California State University

    OpenAI Will Bring ChatGPT to 500,00 Students and Faculty at The California State University

    IBL News | New York

    OpenAI will bring ChatGPT to 500,00 students and faculty at The California State University (CSU).

    The San Francisco-based research lab said that this is the largest organizational rollout of ChatGPT in the world.

    This setup will allow students to enrich their learning experience, acquire practical skills, and gain hands-on experience with AI.

    Meanwhile, faculty will be able to streamline administrative tasks, freeing up more time to focus on teaching, mentoring, and research.

    “We’re in the middle of a critical transition — one where broad access to AI is essential infrastructure for education,” said the institution.

  • The Trump Administration Cancels $400 million In Grants and Contracts to Columbia University

    The Trump Administration Cancels $400 million In Grants and Contracts to Columbia University

    IBL News | New York

    The Trump administration announced on Friday that it had canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University.

    The White House justified its decision by blaming the university’s failure to protect Jewish students from harassment during protests last year over the war in Gaza.

    The announcement escalated the administration’s targeting of Columbia, where pro-Palestinian protests last year over the war in Gaza set off a nationwide debate over free speech, campus policing, and antisemitism and led to similar demonstrations at schools nationwide.

    The move also represents the latest response by the Trump Administration to elite higher educational institutions. It follows last year’s congressional hearings that resulted in the departure of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania presidents. It comes after recent executive orders barring diversity, equity, inclusion, and woke programs at educational institutions that receive federal funds.

    On Monday, Linda McMahon, the newly confirmed secretary of education, issued a warning that the administration had its sights set on Columbia. Ms. McMahon warned that Columbia would face the loss of federal funding, the lifeblood of major research universities, if it did not take additional action to combat antisemitism on campus.

    Student Loans

    On the other hand, yesterday, speaking from the Oval Office, President Trump said he would soon sign an executive order directing the Education Department to modify the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which forgives a portion of federal student loan debt for people who work in public sector jobs, including at nonprofit organizations.

    Trump alleges that some qualifying nonprofit organizations may “engage in illegal, or what we would consider to be improper activities.”

  • President Trump Will Dismantle Soon the U.S. Education Department

    President Trump Will Dismantle Soon the U.S. Education Department

    IBL News | New York

    President Trump will soon sign an executive order to shut down the U.S. Department of Education and put out job Linda McMahon, who the Senate confirmed on Monday.

    Eliminating the department will also require an act of Congress.

    Linda McMahon told employees her final mission was to eliminate bureaucratic bloat and turn over the agency to states.

    Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has already cut dozens of contracts dismissed as “woke and wasteful.”

    It also gutted the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress.

    The U.S. Department of Education’s main role is financial. Annually, it distributes billions in federal money to colleges and schools, manages the $1.5 trillion federal student loan portfolio, and oversees the Pell Grant, which provides aid to students below a certain income threshold.

    These tasks are expected to be assigned to another agency.

    The Education Department also plays an essential regulatory role in services for students, ranging from those with disabilities to low-income and homeless kids.

    Trump has vowed to cut off federal money for schools and colleges that push “critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content” and to reward states and schools that end teacher tenure and support universal school choice programs.

    Federal funding makes up a small portion of public school budgets — roughly 14%.

    Colleges and universities rely more on it through research grants and federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.

  • Amazon Unveiled Its New, Re-Architectured, AI-Powered ‘Alexa+’

    Amazon Unveiled Its New, Re-Architectured, AI-Powered ‘Alexa+’

    IBL News | New York

    Aiming to catch up in generative AI for everyday users, Amazon will launch Alexa+ this month, its enhanced, re-architected AI virtual assistant, set to be “more conversational, helpful in booking concert tickets, coordinating calendars and suggesting food to be delivered.”

    The e-commerce giant said that Alexa is undergoing its most significant overhaul since debuting in 2014, when it became a symbol of Amazon’s innovation.

    Alexa+ will cost $19.99 a month or free for Amazon’s Prime customers (which costs $14.99 monthly). It will begin rolling out next month.

    In recent years, Alexa has fallen behind other virtual assistants. Its growth has stagnated in the United States as people have been turning to the assistant for only a few main tasks, such as setting timers and alarms, playing music, and asking questions about the weather and sports scores.

    At a demo event, Amazon executives demonstrated how Alexa+ could identify who was speaking and know the person’s preferences, such as favorite sports teams, musicians, and foods. They also showed how a device powered by Alexa+ can suggest a restaurant, book a reservation on OpenTable, order an Uber, and send a calendar invitation.

    Bringing generative AI to Alexa faced challenges that a chatbot does not, such as serving multiple users in a household, needing to distinguish who is speaking, and personalizing the responses.

  • Western Governors University Will Provide Engineering and Guidance to the Open edX Platform Organization

    Western Governors University Will Provide Engineering and Guidance to the Open edX Platform Organization

    IBL News | New York

    Open edX, a leading open-source platform and global community stewarded by Axim Collaborative has established a new category of institution-level partnerships called Mission Aligned Organization (MAO). This category is dedicated to accelerating the development of the Open edX platform.

    The first organization to join the project is Western Governors University (WGU), the largest nonprofit university in the U.S.

    This institution has committed to providing a dedicated team of ten engineers, guidance from senior WGU leaders, and product management services.

    “Open edX is a highly scalable, open-source technology platform that has enabled innovation and fast technology implementation that is crucial for our students’ learning outcomes,” said David Morales, senior vice president for technology and CIO at WGU.

    “We are committed to supporting WGU students with high-quality learning experiences and are also pleased to support thousands of other organizations embracing competency-based learning, student-first approaches, and solutions for documenting skills and credentials through our contributions to the Open edX project,” he added.

    Morales will join the Technical Oversight Committee to support strategy, including platform architecture design, tech stack, and design templates.

    The immediate priorities for the WGU engineers on the project include building a roles and permissions framework, creating better facilities for extracting data, setting up libraries of atomic learning units, and improving the upgrade experience for developers.

    Axim Collaborative said, “With WGU’s participation, the Open edX project expects to deepen its ability to support competency-based education, which measures skills and learning rather than time spent in a classroom.”

    “Students earn competency units (the equivalent of credit hours) when they demonstrate skill proficiency through completing performance and objective assessments. As a result, students progress through courses as they prove mastery of the material rather than advancing only when a semester or term ends.”

    The Open edX platform is a leader in learning science and instructional design and pioneered massive open online courses (MOOCs). Since its founding in 2012, the platform has evolved into one of the top learning solutions worldwide, supporting high-quality, high-scale online learning in higher education, enterprise, and government organizations.

    Supported by developers, researchers, and users, the Open edX platform empowers anyone to design or enhance courses and programs.

    WGU adopted the Open edX platform in 2022 to deliver course content to its students. As part of this new collaboration, WGU will help develop additional features and capabilities of the platform, driving innovation that benefits the Open edX ecosystem.

    “WGU’s contributions will help extend the Open edX platform to support better competency-based learning pathways, mastery learning, and microcredentials,” said Edward Zarecor, vice president of engineering for the Open edX platform, Axim Collaborative.

    “We are delighted to see mission-driven organizations collaborate to accelerate innovation around high-impact solutions. WGU’s significant contribution will help all organizations leveraging the platform and continue to grow the Open edX ecosystem of contributors,” said Ferdi Alimadhi, Chief Technology Officer of Open Learning, MIT, and member of the Technical Oversight Committee.

     

    • Blog: WGU & the Open edX Project: Scaling Solutions to Accelerate Access to Competency-Based Learning

  • OpenAI Provides $50M in Compute, API Access, Tools, and Research Funds to Fifteen Universities

    OpenAI Provides $50M in Compute, API Access, Tools, and Research Funds to Fifteen Universities

    IBL News | New York

    OpenAI announced yesterday that it is committing $50 million in research grants, computing funding, and API access to a consortium of 15 research universities called NextGenAI.

    The initiative follows the commercial offer of ChatGPT Edu for universities, launched in May 2024.

    The institutions in the NextGenAI consortium are Caltech, the California State University system, Duke University, the University of Georgia, Harvard University, Howard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Michigan, the University of Mississippi, the Ohio State University, the University of Oxford, Sciences Po, Texas A&M University, Boston Children’s Hospital, the Boston Public Library.

    OpenAI mentioned the following examples of universities using their tools and funding. The distribution of funds was not specified.

    • “The Ohio State University is leveraging AI to accelerate the fields of digital health, advanced therapeutics, manufacturing, energy, mobility, and agriculture, while educators are using AI to create advanced learning models.
    • Harvard University and Boston Children’s Hospital researchers use OpenAI tools and NextGenAI funding to reduce patients’ time to find the correct diagnosis, especially for rare orphan diseases, and improve AI alignment with human values in medical decision-making.
    • Duke University scientists are using AI to pioneer metascience research, identifying the fields of science where AI can have the greatest benefit.
    • Texas A&M is using NextGenAI resources to fuel its Generative AI Literacy Initiative, providing hands-on training to enhance the responsible use of AI in academic settings.
    • MIT students and faculty will be able to use OpenAI’s API and compute funding to train and fine-tune their own AI models and develop new applications.
    • Howard will use AI to develop curricula, experiment with new teaching methods, improve university operations, and give students hands-on AI experience to prepare them as future leaders.
    • University of Oxford is leveraging AI for a broad research agenda, education, and university operations—its renowned Bodleian Library is digitizing rare texts and using OpenAI’s API to transcribe them, making centuries-old knowledge newly searchable by scholars worldwide.
    • University of Mississippi is exploring new ways to integrate AI into their core mission of education, research, and service, and to advance AI-driven solutions that benefit their students, faculty, and the broader community.
    • Boston Public Library, America’s first large free municipal public library, is digitizing public domain materials and using AI to make their information more accessible to patrons from all walks of life.”