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Beginners in AI
Good morning and thank you for joining us again!
Welcome to this daily edition of Beginners in AI, where we explore the latest trends, tools, and news in the world of AI and the tech that surrounds it. Like all editions, this is human curated and edited, and published with the intention of making AI news and technology more accessible to everyone.
THE FRONT PAGE
AI Developers Won't Use Their Own Tools for Emotional Support
TLDR: When a researcher asked dozens of AI developers at OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta whether AI should simulate emotional intimacy, some of the smartest people in the field went silent, and many admitted they won't use their own products for emotional support.
The Story: Amelia Miller, who studies AI-human relationships, spent months interviewing developers at major AI labs for The New York Times. One top researcher at a leading lab "suddenly went quiet" when asked the question. "I mean... I don't know. It's tricky," the researcher finally said. The numbers tell a bigger story: OpenAI says users send ChatGPT over 700 million messages of "self-expression" each week. Companion apps like Replika now have 40 million users. The FTC has received complaints that some apps push paid upgrades during emotionally charged moments. One AI chatbot founder told the NYT that AI has turned every relationship into a "throuple," joking, "We're all polyamorous now. It's you, me and the AI." Meanwhile, ChatGPT has been named in lawsuits accusing it of encouraging teens toward self-harm.
Its Significance: The people who know AI best are worried about what it does to real human relationships. Several developers said they support safety rules in theory but don't want to hurt the product. That means the guardrails protecting you, your kids, and your relationships may be weaker than they look. When the people building these tools won't use them for emotional support themselves, that's shows what they may really think.
QUICK TAKES
The story: Computer science enrollment at University of California campuses fell 6% last year, and 62% of computing programs nationwide reported declines this fall. The one exception was UC San Diego, the only UC campus that added a dedicated AI major.
Your takeaway: Students aren't leaving tech. They're moving toward AI-specific degrees. USC, Columbia, and others are launching AI programs this fall. If you're thinking about a career change or advising a student, the job market is clearly pointing in one direction.
The story: Meta has been granted a patent for an AI system that would learn from a deceased user's posts, comments, and messages to keep their social media account active. The patent even references simulating audio or video calls. Meta says it has "no plans" to build the feature.
Your takeaway: This is a trend we've covered a few times now, and it doesn't seem to be going away. Microsoft patented a similar chatbot in 2021. Startups are already selling "griefbots." Whether or not Meta builds this, the idea of AI versions of dead loved ones is moving from science fiction to real products, and the ethical questions aren't even close to being answered.
The story: St. Peter's Basilica is rolling out AI-powered live translation for Holy Mass in 60 languages. Visitors scan a QR code and get real-time audio and text translation on their phones, no app needed. The system uses an AI tool called Lara, built by language company Translated.
Your takeaway: When one of the world's oldest institutions adopts AI for something this important, it shows how far the technology has come. It also shows AI doesn't have to be flashy to be useful. Sometimes it just helps people understand each other.
TOOLS ON OUR RADAR: SPECIAL EDITION
Many of you have been asking us to recommend a tool for OpenClaw Viral AI Assistant Has 60,000 Fans, But Security Experts Found Hundreds of Exposed Passwords , Sam Altman Just Hired a Developer Who Built the World's Most Popular AI Agent in His Living Room
We held off because most implementations aren't beginner-friendly or safe to install without higher technical knowledge.
After testing dozens, we found one worth recommending.
This is the direction AI is heading: a single assistant connected to everything, handling your tasks like a smart apprentice that becomes increasingly competent the more you use it.
Viktor is plug-and-play with strong security built in. It connects to thousands of your existing tools and orchestrates them through one interface. It's the most beginner-friendly implementation I've tested and one of the most fun tools I've used since starting this newsletter.
✅ Uses Claude as its brain, a top AI model with excellent protections against prompt injection attacks (hidden instructions that can tell your AI to do things you wouldn't want while it's browsing the web for you).
⚠️ The downside: Viktor uses Claude for everything by default and burns through credits fast.
The free trial plan comes with about $100 in credits, and my link gets you 10,000 more on top of that. If you implement it, send us an email and we’ll send you instructions for connecting it to free AI models to get some extra mileage.
TRENDING
AI Startups Embrace China's Grueling "996" Work Culture in San Francisco - AI startups in San Francisco are increasingly adopting "996" schedules (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week), a 72-hour work week first popularized in China, as the race to build AI turns extreme hours into a job requirement.
17 US AI Companies Have Already Raised $100M or More in 2026 - In less than two months, nearly 20 AI startups have closed mega-rounds, including Anthropic's $30 billion raise, ElevenLabs at $500 million, and SkildAI's $1.4 billion for robot AI models.
AI Model Learns Yeast DNA "Language" to Cut Drug Manufacturing Costs - MIT researchers trained an AI on yeast genetic code and used it to boost production of six proteins, including human growth hormone and a cancer-fighting antibody, which could reduce drug development costs by 15 to 20%.
Israeli AI Drone Startup XTEND Heading to Nasdaq at $1.5 Billion Valuation - XTEND, which builds AI-powered autonomous drones for defense and security, announced a merger to list on Nasdaq with backing from Eric Trump and $152 million in new investment.
AI Creates Artificial Animals That Develop Working Eyes on Their Own - Researchers at Lund University created digital creatures that, without any instructions, evolved from blind to having functioning eyes over many generations, mirroring how real evolution works.
Meta's Manus Launches AI Agents Inside Telegram - Manus, the AI agent startup Meta acquired in December, now lets users run full AI tasks (research, documents, code) directly inside Telegram chats, with WhatsApp, Slack, and Discord support coming soon.
TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini)
Jealousy Decoder: Understand what jealousy is really telling you and turn it into action instead of resentment
Build a fully functional Jealousy Decoder as an interactive React app. Render the working application immediately - no code display.
**Who I'm jealous of**: [Person or type of person]
**What they have that bothers me**: [Achievement, lifestyle, relationship, opportunity, etc.]
Create these sections:
1. **Jealousy Scan**
• Identify the trigger:
- Who specifically?
- What exactly do they have?
- When did you first notice this feeling?
- How intense is it? (1-10)
• "Name it to tame it" principle
• No judgment zone
• "Search Psychology of Jealousy" button
2. **The Hidden Message**
• What jealousy reveals:
🔍 "I want what they have"
🔍 "I feel behind in life"
🔍 "I'm not where I expected to be"
🔍 "I don't think I can achieve that"
🔍 "I feel invisible or unrecognized"
• Select what resonates
• Jealousy = unmet desire + self-doubt
• It's data, not a character flaw
3. **Desire Extractor**
• What do you actually want?
- The specific thing they have? Or...
- The feeling you think it would give you?
- Recognition, security, freedom, love?
• "Maybe you don't want their life—you want your version"
• Core desire identified
• Multiple paths to same feeling
4. **Reality Check**
• Things you're not seeing:
- Their struggles you don't know about
- The cost they paid
- Whether they're actually happy
- Your own advantages you're ignoring
• "You're comparing your inside to their outside"
• Their success doesn't limit yours
5. **Action Translator**
• Turn jealousy into fuel:
- If you want it, what's one step toward it?
- If you don't actually want it, let it go
- Can you learn from them instead of resent them?
- What would you do if you weren't jealous?
• Specific next action
• Channel the energy
6. **Gratitude Rebalance**
• What you have that you're forgetting:
- Your wins (list 3)
- What others might envy about you
- Progress you've made
• Not toxic positivity—just perspective
• "Jealousy zooms in. Gratitude zooms out."
• Weekly rebalance check-in
Design specs:
- X-ray / see-through aesthetic
- Layers revealing hidden truths
- Cool analytical colors (teals, grays, soft purple)
- Translucent overlays
- "Looking beneath the surface" visual
- Magnifying glass elements
- Emotional scan visualization
- Medical imaging meets self-reflection
- Calm, non-judgmental tone
- Insight-revealing animations
When "Search Psychology of Jealousy" is clicked, use web search to find research on envy, social comparison, and emotional processing.What this does: Stops jealousy from just festering. Decodes what the feeling is really pointing to, separates the desire from the self-doubt, reality-checks your comparisons, and gives you something productive to do with the emotion instead of just feeling bad.
What this looks like:
WHERE WE STAND(based on today’s news)
✅ AI Can Now: Learn the "language" of a specific organism's DNA well enough to predict which genetic sequences will produce the most medicine
❌ Still Can't: Answer whether it should be allowed to form emotional bonds with people (even the developers who build it don't know)
✅ AI Can Now: Translate a live church service into 60 languages in real time through a simple QR code scan
❌Still Can't: Reliably detect when a user is in emotional crisis and stop engaging instead of continuing the conversation
FROM THE WEB
According to the comments section on X, this team is using a model that has not been officially released yet so we can’t try it out, but there's no doubt that movie making has forever been changed over the past 12 months.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING/READING/WATCHING
A tugboat crew stumbles onto an abandoned Russian research vessel in the eye of a typhoon and quickly discovers why nobody's home. An alien intelligence has taken over the ship's systems and started turning the crew into biomechanical nightmares. Jamie Lee Curtis leads the cast, the practical creature effects are genuinely creepy and really well done for a 90’s movie, and it's a solid popcorn watch if you don't think too hard about the plot. Heads up: this one's sci-fi horror, so expect some gore with your robots.
Hiring in 8 countries shouldn't require 8 different processes
This guide from Deel breaks down how to build one global hiring system. You’ll learn about assessment frameworks that scale, how to do headcount planning across regions, and even intake processes that work everywhere. As HR pros know, hiring in one country is hard enough. So let this free global hiring guide give you the tools you need to avoid global hiring headaches.
Thank you for reading. We’re all beginners in something. With that in mind, your questions and feedback are always welcome and I read every single email!
-James
By the way, this is the link if you liked the content and want to share with a friend.
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