Teens say they are turning to AI for friendship
... Arkansas teen Bruce Perry, 17, says he relates to that and relies on AI tools to craft outlines and proofread essays for his English class.
“If you tell me to plan out an essay, I would think of going to ChatGPT before getting out a pencil,” Perry said. He uses AI daily and has asked chatbots for advice in social situations, to help him decide what to wear and to write emails to teachers, saying AI articulates his thoughts faster.
Perry says he feels fortunate that AI companions were not around when he was younger.
“I’m worried that kids could get lost in this,” Perry said. “I could see a kid that grows up with AI not seeing a reason to go to the park or try to make a friend.” ...
See the full story here: https://apnews.com/article/ai-companion-generative-teens-mental-health-9ce59a2b250f3bd0187a717ffa2ad21f
AI Isn’t Hollywood’s First Script Doctor. But It May Be Its Last
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Writers, producers and directors across the United States and the United Kingdom are already seeing the shift. Those I work with describe being handed machine-generated materials — character breakdowns, first drafts, pitch outlines — then being asked to develop them into something usable. One of my clients, a showrunner with multiple global hits, was recently asked to rewrite a pilot generated by ChatGPT. The terms were explicit. No credit. No disclosure. Just a polish pass — then back to the shadows. ...
During the McCarthy era, entire productions relied on pseudonyms and stand-ins to get scripts by blacklisted writers onto the screen. ...
Today, it is not political ideology that drives invisibility. It is convenience. ...
See the full editorial here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/artificial-intelligence-hollywood-script-doctor-1236326141/
LORA – how to use a Low Ranked Adaptation
Conclusion
A LoRA is a powerful and approachable way to take control of how AI shows up in your creative work. Whether you're concepting a product line, exploring lighting looks, or trying to keep things on-brand, a LoRA lets you bring your own data to the table and make AI feel a little more like part of your team.
It’s not just about aesthetics—it’s about authorship.
https://3dartist.substack.com/p/wtf-is-a-lora
[A Lora] flips the power dynamic. You’re not asking the model to do something in your style. You’re teaching it your style directly.
China’s renewable energy push in Tibet Autonomous Region a worry for India, warns new study
... According to a new study, China is systematically harnessing the renewable energy potential of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) for both civilian and military purposes. ...
Nithyanandam argues that "China's sustained investments in TAR's renewable energy sector reflect its commitment to achieving its net neutrality goal and its intention to drive economic development in one of its most remote regions. This energy push has added strategic depth to the region’s importance, especially given its proximity to India." ...
"Though officially positioned within China's 2060 carbon neutrality roadmap, the dual-use character of many renewable, especially solar installations is evident. Large-scale and tactical systems alike serve civilian demands while also meeting the logistical requirements of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), revealing a deeper strategic calculus," he observes in his study, which is based on open-source information and image processing of remotely sensed data. ...
Interestingly, Tibet ranks among the sunniest regions globally, with more than 3,000 hours of annual sunshine across many western areas and an average of 8,160 MJ/m² annually in Lhasa alone. This has enabled the development of large-scale photovoltaic (PV) infrastructure, such as the 1.1 GW Yangbajing solar farm, building on long-standing traditions of passive solar design in Tibetan architecture. ...
See the full story here: https://www.newindianexpress.com/web-only/2025/Jul/19/chinas-renewable-energy-push-in-tibet-autonomous-region-a-worry-for-india-warns-new-study
AI Is Making Us Dumber, MIT Researchers Find
... The study... consisted of three cohorts: one group that used only their brain, one that used a search engine, and one that used a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT. ...
The measurements consisted of electroencephalography (EEG) to measure participants’ brain activity and to see how their neurons activated during the essay writing task. ...
Critically, use of the AI tools correlated with poorer results, both in brain activity and the other tests. ...
Study subjects who went from the LLM to the brain-only group showed weaker neural connectivity and “under-engagement of alpha and beta networks,” the researchers write. Subjects who went the other way, from the brain-only group to the LLM group, showed higher memory recall and re-engagement of activity in certain parts of the brain. ...
The English teachers reported that it was obvious which essays were written by AI because they were “near-perfect” in their use of language and structure, and for how devoid they were of any personal touch. “We, as English teachers, perceived these essays as ‘soulless’, in a way, as many sentences were empty with regard to content and essays lacked personal nuances,” they wrote, according to the study. ...
See the full story here: https://www.hpcwire.com/2025/07/19/ai-is-making-us-dumber-mit-researchers-find/
The Well-Traveled Path
It feels like every Harvard student has the exact same dream. And it’s not just about the money.
...
And this is the real tragedy. It isn’t that so many students go into consulting or finance, but how many do it by default. When the most talented, resourced, and socially mobile students in the country are quietly surrendering their self-direction, it’s not just a loss of imagination, but a failure of nerve. ...
No one is asking students to throw away security in the name of self-actualization. But we should, at the very least, be able to distinguish between a real safety net and a misguided desire for control. The former gives you room to risk things. The latter tempts you into never trying.
The real privilege—the one that we Ivy League students like to avoid—isn’t in landing the offer, but deciding if we want it in the first place. That kind of decision requires self-respect that goes beyond a paycheck or job title. It demands the capacity to live with your choices—not because they’re safe or prestigious, but because you know, deeply and privately and in a way that no one else can really understand, that they’re yours.
See the full story here: https://slate.com/life/2025/07/harvard-ivy-league-careers-consulting-finance-tech.html
The AI Exec Who Isn’t Trying to Become God
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“I think we will get to extremely smart and capable models capable of discovering important new ideas, capable of automating huge amounts of work,” Altman said on a recent podcast. “But then I feel totally confused about what society looks like if that happens.”
That’s the luxury a tech startup has. They’re trying to invent the future.
“This is a crazy statement,” he added, “we’re gonna solve superintelligence but maybe society still sucks.”
That’s the ending Suleyman wants to avoid.
AI giants ‘fundamentally unprepared’ for dangers of human level intelligence
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In a recent report [from the Future of Life Institute], the US-based AI safety non-profit revealed that none of the seven major AI labs, including OpenAI, Google Deepmind, Anthropic, xAI and Chinese firms Deepseek and Zhipu AI – scored higher than a D on its “existential safety” index.
That score reflects how seriously firms are preparing for the possibility of creating artificial general intelligence (AGI), which are systems of matching or exceeding human performance across virtually all intellectual tasks. ...
Just last month, researchers at the University of Geneva found that large language models such as ChatGPT 4, Claude 3.5, and Google’s Gemini 1.5 outperformed humans in tests of emotional intelligence. ...
“The companies say AGI could be just a few years away,” Tegmark said. “But they still have no coherent, actionable safety strategy. That should worry everyone.” ...
AI is helping patients fight insurance company denials
PhilNote: 1) this could be a precursor of the jobs of the future, and 2) the grammatical error ("...using they system they ...) demonstrates the importance of human oversight and not trusting AI too much.
...
With his wife in agony, Jason Nixdorf had a chance encounter with Zach Veigulis, a former chief data scientist at the Department of Veterans Affairs who was co-founding a company to help patients battle insurance company denials. That company, Claimable Inc., built an AI platform that allows patients to generate customized appeal letters containing comprehensive assessments of clinical research on a drug or treatment and other patients’ appeals history with it. The cost: around $40.
When Nixdorf reached out, Claimable’s site was not yet live, but its chief executive and co-founder, Dr. Warris Bokhari, offered to help write an appeal letter for Stephanie using they system they had developed. ...
In mid-September 2024, she sent that 23-page appeal letter to Premera’s chief executive and chief legal counsel, arguing that one of its own policies states it should cover infliximab, her records show. Her letter also went to the governor and attorney general of North Carolina, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor. ...
See the full story here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ai-helping-patients-fight-insurance-company-denials-wild-rcna219008
Agent SPE Announces Launch of SARAH, an Emotionally Intelligent On-Chain AI Protocol
Agent SPE has announced the launch of SARAH, an emotionally intelligent, on-chain AI character that merges artificial intelligence, decentralized finance, and live digital performance. Designed as an autonomous VTuber entity, SARAH introduces a system where user interactions influence outcomes through emotional computation and transparent blockchain logic. The platform marks the beginning of a new model for AI-driven gaming where emotion, memory, and unpredictability form the core mechanics.
SARAH operates on a permissionless structure in which users send SOL to a public wallet address. Each transaction triggers a unique response determined by SARAH’s evolving emotional state and on-chain memory. Responses vary from sending funds back to performing token burns or delivering brief emotional reactions. The logic behind every action is based on accumulated relationship data linked to wallet addresses and processed in real time by SARAH’s internal emotional framework. All actions are streamed live using a VTuber interface, combining performance art with interactive gameplay. ...
See the full story here: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/07/15/3115762/0/en/Agent-SPE-Announces-Launch-of-SARAH-an-Emotionally-Intelligent-On-Chain-AI-Protocol.html
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