Everyone knows Spock (Leonard Nimoy) as probably the most influential character in science fiction. Whenever you mention the genre to people who aren't that familiar with it, everyone tends to know at least the Vulcan salute or "Live long and prosper." As iconic as those are, however, they are far from being the finest our favorite half-Vulcan has to offer. With so much of him on Star Trek, from The Original Series to the movies, it might seem difficult to pinpoint Spock's best moment, but look no further than Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and his iconic line: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." It captures his essence perfectly, and is definitely among pop culture's most misquoted and misunderstood lines.

People often cite Squid Game as Netflix’s biggest global success when discussing the streamer's major international hits. The South Korean survival/thriller series was the first true cultural phenomenon created by Netflix and dominated the global television landscape by surpassing all existing viewing records at the time. However, when looking at the revenue generated by Squid Game, it is easy to overlook that the platform had already proven years earlier that audiences would support non-English-language shows with Money Heist.

Marvel fans have been enjoying a surplus of content on Disney+ this year, and it all started with the premiere of Wonder Man, the showbiz epic starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ben Kingsley. The show was dropped as a binge at the end of January, but the same can’t be said for Marvel’s second Disney+ show of the year, Daredevil: Born Again Season 2. The MCU is also eyeing a big year on the big screen, starting with Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, and Jon Bernthal as The Punisher. The film is expected to lead directly into Avengers: Doomsday, starring Robert Downey Jr as Victor Von Doom, which is coming to theaters on December 18. However, there is one more Marvel project coming back this year that has everyone talking.

Marvel may have some of the most popular characters in comic book history, but where the brand has really shone is with its teams. One of the first that comes to mind is Marvel’s First Family, aka The Fantastic Four, who have headlined several feature films and hundreds of comics over the years. The Avengers have also become one of Marvel’s biggest cash cows in recent years, particularly thanks to the rise of the team during the early days of the MCU’s Infinity Saga. There is, however, another Marvel team that stands above the rest as the most popular in comic book history: The X-Men.

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...as I said earlier I missed out on the Fright Knight theme, I started frequenting cafés, pubs and clubs... but a small AFOL was still around in me when I visited friends with Lego I was always ready to play with their kids (and their Lego...

Peace and Noise!

/Mushroombrain from the brick-block

X-Men '97returns for its second season next month, and it's pulling out all the stops. Not only will fans finally learn what happened to the X-Men when they were yanked through time, but Season 2 will also pit them against different versions of the mutant warlord Apocalypse. X-Men '97 Season 2 will also introduce even more mutants, including the return of the mutant government team X-Factor and Cable forming the paramilitary squad X-Force. Yet the biggest character reveal might have flown under fans' noses, and it hints at another major Marvel superhero team getting their own animated series.

Hong Kong scholar Joseph Li has had to rethink the design of his courses almost every semester over the past few years, as powerful AI chatbots disrupt how teachers teach and students learn.

His discipline – an emerging academic field called “public humanities,” which integrates cultural theories with a focus on community-building – is novel enough to require constant revision of its curriculum.

But the sheer speed at which artificial intelligence has evolved since November 2022 – when OpenAI released its powerful ChatGPT, kicking off an AI frenzy – has necessitated a more radical reimagining of higher education, Li said.

For example, with AI, writing essays has become less meaningful as a form of assessment, as the technology can generate prose “within seconds,” Li, a research assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), told HKFP in an interview in April.

Now, a course needs to incorporate several grading methods, including in-class handwritten tests, to fully assess students, he said.

The point is not to ban students from using AI, as Li himself allows students to freely use the technology in some settings.

“The logic is to make all these assignments interconnected and accumulative, so that [students] cannot instantly generate something” for the sake of handing in their homework, he said in Cantonese.

Across academic disciplines, professors and lecturers in Hong Kong are rethinking their teaching and the ways they assess students’ learning outcomes. The goal is to cultivate what scholars call “AI literacy” – a responsible and constructive approach to using the emerging technology in the real world.

“When [students] graduate, it is certain that they will be exposed to AI and they will use AI,” George Ho, an associate professor of supply chain and information management at the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (HSU), told HKFP in Cantonese.

“What we need to do is to ensure they use it ethically, use it well, and acquire the necessary skills to master the technology,” Ho said.

The process is both fruitful and challenging, according to teaching academics and experts interviewed by HKFP. While generative AI has unleashed massive potential for innovative teaching and greatly accelerated students’ learning, the technology also raises questions about fairness and academic integrity.

From ban to embrace

Kelvin Wan, a digital learning specialist at HSU, recalled that when the AI boom began in late 2022, universities in Hong Kong were cautious about the technology and its implications for education.

That anxiety was demonstrated when the University of Hong Kong (HKU), the city’s oldest university, issued a temporary ban on AI tools for coursework in February 2023. HKU lifted the ban in the summer of that year and gave its teachers and students access to ChatGPT in September 2023.

Cecilia Chan, a professor of education at HKU, who leads the university’s AI in Education Lab, told media outlet The Initium in 2024 that the temporary AI ban was implemented to give school management time to acquire the hardware, software, and knowledge required to apply the nascent technology in education.

HKU has since fully embraced generative AI. In its AI policy, rolled out in the 2023-24 academic year, the university stated that “AI literacy is essential,” and that “rethinking pedagogy is most likely necessary.”

“Universities in Hong Kong were in fact watching each other at that time,” Wan told HKFP in Cantonese. “So we were pretty cautious at the beginning… But, from our perspective, we wanted to know what [AI] is.”

In May 2023, HSU organised a seminar on the pros and cons of using AI in higher education, as well as the ethical issues arising from the technology. Teachers were positive about the discussion, and the school began drafting guidelines for the use of AI for both staff and students, Wan recalled.

At HSU, the school encourages teachers to openly communicate with students about where they are allowed to use AI for assignments from the start of the semester, Wan said.

Meanwhile, the school also provides guidance for students to responsibly report their use of AI to teachers. “This hopefully will safeguard their academic integrity,” Wan said.

Ho, the supply chain professor at HSU, said his students were trained in skills to use AI, including systems thinking – the ability to break down a complex problem into solvable parts – and critical thinking – being able to evaluate the information generated by AI.

Wan called those “transferable skills,” meaning they are valid in various real-world scenarios, not just for using AI. “No matter how advanced AI becomes in the future, we as humans have to evaluate its outputs and make our own judgements,” he said.

Ultimately, students have to be responsible for their use of AI, Wan said. “AI is fundamentally a tool, and it cannot take responsibility… Whoever uses AI has the responsibility to criticise and evaluate its outputs.”

Subjects at risk

As AI takes root in classrooms, it appears to be a promising tool for teachers and students alike.

Tang Yuk-ming, a senior lecturer at the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, has studied the impact of advanced information technologies on students’ learning outcomes and efficacy.

His research during the Covid-19 pandemic, when online learning was the predominant mode of higher education due to social distancing rules, found that virtual reality (VR) could improve students’ academic performance and motivation to learn.

AI chatbots can enable teachers and students to “personalise learning,” said Tang, whose research focus also includes the application of AI.

As the digital assistant is available 24 hours a day, students can get instant responses tailored to their needs. At the same time, teachers can review students’ interactions with AI to identify their weak spots for strategic intervention.

Tang’s department has developed in-house AI chatbots for students, and teachers will only use the data collected for teaching enhancement, he said, brushing off privacy concerns.

See also: AI as ‘personal therapist’: Despite risks, Hong Kong teenagers turn to chatbots for counselling

Ho shared the positive assessment of AI’s impact in his discipline of supply chain science. Thanks to AI’s assistance, what used to take a year for students to complete, such as problem-solving projects using real-world corporate data, can now be finished within a single semester.

But there has been a growing concern that, at the current rate of development, AI could shortly replace jobs and wipe out whole categories of work. STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – are considered to be at risk.

Between 2022 and 2025, entry-level jobs in Hong Kong plummeted by 60 per cent, with junior roles in administration and programming vanishing at even higher rates, government data showed last month. The city’s labour minister, Chris Sun, said these areas are vulnerable to automation and that authorities are studying the impact of AI across job markets.

Both Tang and Ho dismissed the idea that AI would replace engineering graduates in the future and said that “tedious jobs” may disappear.

“My view is that [AI] will vastly raise productivity, but there may not be as many people with the skills to use these tools to finish tasks,” Tang said.

“STEM subjects are never just about training your basic knowledge; it is about your mindset and problem-solving abilities,” he added. “People who know how to solve problems will always be needed.”

For the humanities, the idea of AI as a threat is less acute, because human-centred knowledge and human interactions – such as engaging with a community – are some things AI cannot produce on its own, Li said.

“Ultimately, what we [in the humanities field] are interested in is people’s unique experience, how it can help us make sense of ourselves and what we can do as humans.”

In contrast, he said, AI can only assist students in this process.

Challenges in higher education

While AI shows much potential for improving teaching and learning, its adoption in higher education comes with its own challenges.

Wan said that, in his experience promoting AI literacy, teachers are often more adept at picking up the technology than students. “I realised our colleagues and teachers have to use [AI] every day at work, while students stop using it at semester breaks,” he said.

He also noted that university freshmen are typically less savvy at using AI for their learning compared with more senior students. The problem, he argued, stemmed from a lack of AI-related training in the city’s secondary school curriculum.

“DSE students are not that AI-ready coming out of secondary schools, so they may struggle when they enter universities and have to use the technology,” he said. “The university should provide some support in that regard.”

Another challenge lies with ensuring fairness as the use of AI becomes ubiquitous. Universities in Hong Kong have sought to provide students with equal access to cutting-edge AI models, but, as Li observed, a minority of students choose not to use the technology for their learning.

“It may be an ethical choice. They may think they have abused water resources, or they may think AI has made them dumb,” Li said of the students.

AI critics have raised concerns about how data centres powering the technology are using millions of litres of water for cooling, depleting the resource in some communities around the world.

There have been debates about AI’s impact on the mind. While some studies suggest that the tool can improve academic performance, other research has found that relying on AI for tasks like essay writing can weaken cognitive activities in the long run – an accumulated “debt” for the brain.

Both the costs and benefits may be real. According to a study published in April, while using AI improved people’s problem-solving in the short term, it impaired their independent performance and made them more likely to give up when not assisted by the technology.

The students who opt out of using AI “may see learning as a form of self-cultivation, and they don’t want AI to interfere with that process,” Li said. “It is an important reminder to respect this group of students when we design our courses.”

As AI grows more powerful at an exponential rate, there are also worries that teachers themselves are at risk of being replaced.

While this is an “interesting” possibility, Tang said, chatbots that are always available cannot “completely” replace teachers and schools.

“Teachers are not only about teaching. They understand the students’ needs through communication, and they guide students towards addressing those needs,” he said.

“AI cannot do this alone so far.”

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Where Silence Learns to Speak.
Some places don’t ask you to move on — they simply ask you to stay still for a while.
Black-and-white moments have a way of turning silence into memory.

The problem with streaming is that shows can get cancelled out of nowhere. Shows like Mindhunter, The OA, The Society, I Am Not Okay With This, and Hannibal were all cancelled before they could finish their stories. That’s why miniseries are so satisfying. They tell a full story in just a handful of episodes. No waiting for a new season. No risk of getting ghosted by the platform. But even miniseries can go off the rails. Many of them start strong but completely fall apart by the end.

Naruto is one of the most memorable and iconically influential series ever created. The shōnen anime follows the young ninja Naruto Uzumaki (Maile Flanagan), who is ostracized by his village for carrying the Nine-Tailed Fox within him, as he strives to earn the respect of his village and become the Hokage. The beloved classic delivers incredible storytelling across countless episodes and carries overwhelming cultural clout; still, being iconic does not automatically make it untouchable. Quite a few animated series have definitely managed to surpass the beloved action anime in one way or another.

For most of its run, NCIS has preferred stability, with characters coming and going, but the Major Case Response Team's structure has rarely changed. There was always a clear hierarchy, familiar faces in the bullpen, and Leon Vance overseeing everything. Season 24 may be about to break that pattern.

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