Joelle Renstrom

Writer

Replacing human TAs with an AI that uses the same technology many schools and teachers prohibit seems hypocritical at best and irresponsible at worst.

AI teaching assistants are no match for human beings

People enter the campus of Morehouse College in Atlanta on Friday, April 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Education

Opinion

Technology

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket soars into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Feb. 15. (Gregg Newton/AFP via Getty Images)

Why a private mission to the moon is still a win for America

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center with Intuitive Machines' Nova-C moon lander mission, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Feb. 15. (Photo by Gregg Newton / AFP via Getty Images)

TOPSHOT-US-SPACE-MOON-INTUITIVE-MACHINES

Commentary

Business

News

A screenshot of the code that reveals the programming behind Anna Indiana. (Anna Indiana/X)

You think AI could write 'Shake It Off?' As if

A screengrab from Anna Indiana's "Miles of Smiles" video. (Anna Indiana/YouTube)

Music

What Jupiter’s icy moons might tell us about our universe

This view of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and turbulent southern hemisphere was captured by NASA's Juno spacecraft as it performed a close pass of the gas giant planet in 2019. (Enhanced image by Kevin M. Gill (CC-BY) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS.)

JupiterMarble

Environment

Science

Artemis finally launched. But we’ll need humility to return to the moon

NASA’s Artemis I Space Launch System rocket, with the Orion capsule attached, launches at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Nov. 16 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Artemis I Launches After Several Failed Attempts

Why sending a Native American into space is a big deal

In this image from video made available by NASA, U.S. Marine Col. Nicole Mann, a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in California, enters the International Space Station from a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Oct. 6. (NASA via AP)

Space Station

Local content from WBUR's Morning Edition broadcasts

WBUR's Morning Edition

What the Webb telescope might tell us about ourselves

Nasa broadcasts the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope on the Piccadilly Lights screen in London. Picture date: Tuesday July 12, 2022. (Photo by James Manning/PA Images via Getty Images)

Webb2

NASA astronaut Anne McClain and Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques float outside the International Space Station, April 8, 2019, as they tackle battery and cable work. (NASA via AP)

If We Commodify Space, Who's In Charge Of The Cosmos?

commentary

Paradigms shift in dizzying fashion as the secrets of space and time unfold. With perspective, earthly, human problems seem trifling.

&quot;Star Wars&quot; characters C-3PO, left, and R2D2 arrive at the American Cinematheque Award gala honoring Samuel L. Jackson in Beverly Hills, Calif. in Dec. 2008. (Matt Sayles/AP)

I'm Fed Up With Humanity. It's Time For An Alien Intervention

Perhaps aliens or robots would see enough potential in humanity to take us under their wing, writes Joelle Renstrom. And no travel ban or wall would stop them. Pictured: The Soyuz TMA-19M capsule carrying NASA's Jeff Williams, and two Russian cosmonauts descends beneath a parachute over Kazakhstan, in Sept., 2016 after a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station. (Maxim Shipenkov/AP)

2016 AP Year End Photos

Books

Life

Media

Traveling at the speed of light, it would take approximately 40 years to reach TRAPPIST-1...which, in cosmic terms, is a neighborly jaunt.

An artist's rendering of the surface of the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1f, located in the TRAPPIST-1 system in the constellation Aquarius. (Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (IPAC))

...humanity has proven itself capable of meeting seemingly insurmountable challenges. In 1903, a New York Times editorial declared that making a “flying machine” would take at least one million years... Nine weeks later, the Wright Brothers made history.

TRAPPIST-1 Is Only 40 Light Years Away! Wait. What?

Exactly how far away is this system? asks Joelle Renstrom. How long would it take to get there? Pictured: This artist's conception shows what the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system may look like, based on available data about their diameters, masses and distances from the host star. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Joelle Renstrom

Recently published

AI teaching assistants are no match for human beings

Cognoscenti

Why a private mission to the moon is still a win for America

Cognoscenti

You think AI could write 'Shake It Off?' As if

Cognoscenti

What Jupiter’s icy moons might tell us about our universe

Cognoscenti

Artemis finally launched. But we’ll need humility to return to the moon

Cognoscenti

Why sending a Native American into space is a big deal

Cognoscenti

What the Webb telescope might tell us about ourselves

Cognoscenti

If We Commodify Space, Who's In Charge Of The Cosmos?

Cognoscenti

I'm Fed Up With Humanity. It's Time For An Alien Intervention

Cognoscenti

TRAPPIST-1 Is Only 40 Light Years Away! Wait. What?

Cognoscenti