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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 published with the intention of making AI news and technology more accessible to everyone.
THE FRONT PAGE
Half the Internet Isn't Human Anymore—And Now Everyone Wants Your ID
TLDR: As bots now generate roughly half of all internet traffic and AI-produced content floods social media and dating apps, a new wave of identity verification systems is emerging—but whether they protect privacy or erode it depends entirely on who builds them.
The Story:
The internet has a humanity problem. Bots account for roughly 50% of all web traffic, and more than half of newly published online content now shows signs of AI generation. On dating apps, over 15% of profiles are fake or bot-generated, with romance scams up 20% in the first quarter of 2025 and victims losing an average of $8,000 each. What was once dismissed as the fringe "dead internet theory" now has data to back it up: you genuinely can't tell if you're talking to a real person anymore. San Francisco startup Alien launched an identity app on Thursday that claims to solve this without surrendering your data—processing facial scans in secure enclaves, deleting images immediately, and storing only anonymized hashes on-chain. "We started with a simple question: what does it mean to be a human in the age of AI?" founder Kirill Avery told Decrypt.
Its Significance:
Alien enters a crowded field that includes Worldcoin's 16 million verified users, Humanity Protocol's palm-scanning system, and even Bhutan's move to put its entire national ID on Ethereum—though Avery himself warned that approach is "a double-edged sword" since credentials on public blockchains "live forever" and can enable surveillance. The timing matters: Australia's world-first ban on social media for under-16s took effect today, with platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube now required to verify ages or face $50 million fines. In the US, 25 states have passed age verification laws for adult content, and 10 states now require it for social media—typically demanding government IDs or facial scans. The UK's Online Safety Act, France's pornography age-gating, and a proposed EU-wide minimum age of 16 for social media all point the same direction. As Avery puts it, the internet is splitting into two camps: "governments and companies that will start incorporating government IDs to verify authenticity, and decentralized solutions that will create alternatives." The question isn't whether identity verification is coming—it's whether you'll have any say in who controls it.
QUICK TAKES
The story: ElevenLabs, known for its AI voice tools, launched Image & Video in beta. The new feature brings top video generators like OpenAI's Sora 2, Google's Veo 3.1, and Kling 2.5 into one platform. Users can generate videos from text prompts, add ElevenLabs voiceovers and music, apply lip-sync to match speech with visuals, and export polished content from a single timeline. The company is positioning itself as an "Adobe for AI" by combining the best third-party video models with its industry-leading audio tools.
Your takeaway: Instead of building its own video model, ElevenLabs is betting on being the place where creators bring everything together—a smart move that could make it the go-to hub for AI content production.
The story: The U.S. Navy announced a $448 million partnership with Palantir to bring AI into shipbuilding. The new "Ship OS" system will help plan and track submarine construction. In pilot tests, AI cut submarine planning time from 160 hours to just 10 minutes. Material compliance reviews that used to take weeks now finish in under an hour. The program starts with submarine construction and will expand to other ship types.
Your takeaway: This is one of the largest government AI contracts for manufacturing. If it works at scale, it could reshape how the U.S. builds military equipment and help address shipyard backlogs.
The story: ChatGPT's mobile growth has stalled since summer, while Google's Gemini app is gaining ground in downloads, engagement, and time spent in the app. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared an internal "code red," delaying advertising plans and other projects to focus on improving ChatGPT. Google released Gemini 3 in November, which beats ChatGPT on several performance tests.
Your takeaway: The AI chatbot race is tightening. Google's deep pockets and integration across Android, Search, and Workspace give Gemini advantages that OpenAI will struggle to match.
The story: Anthropic, OpenAI, and Block (the company behind Square) created a new foundation to set standards for AI agents—software that can take actions on your behalf. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Cloudflare are supporting it. Anthropic donated its Model Context Protocol (which gets 97 million monthly downloads), and OpenAI contributed its AGENTS.md specification. The move comes as China leads the U.S. in open-source AI downloads globally.
Your takeaway: When fierce competitors team up, pay attention. Shared standards could make AI agents work better together and help American companies compete with China's fast-growing open-source AI ecosystem.
The story: OpenAI hired Denise Dresser, the CEO of Slack who spent 14 years at Salesforce, as its first-ever Chief Revenue Officer. The move signals a major push into business sales. OpenAI made $4.3 billion in the first half of 2025 but burned through $2.5 billion. The company projects $74 billion in losses by 2028 as it races to build more powerful AI.
Your takeaway: OpenAI needs paying business customers, fast. Bringing in a proven enterprise sales leader from Salesforce suggests the company is getting serious about turning its technology into sustainable revenue.
The story: The European Commission is investigating whether Google broke competition rules by using content from web publishers and YouTube creators to train its AI without fair payment. The probe focuses on AI Overviews and AI Mode in Google Search. Publishers face a tough choice: if they block Google from using their content, they risk losing visibility in search results.
Your takeaway: This could set a major precedent for how AI companies compensate content creators. If the EU rules against Google, other AI companies using web content for training could face similar pressure—and potential fines up to 10% of global revenue.
TOOLS ON OUR RADAR
📄 Rezi
Freemium: Build an ATS-optimized resume that gets past automated screening systems and into recruiters' hands.🔇 Krisp
Freemium: Remove background noise and echo from your calls so you sound professional anywhere you work.🎬 Lumen5
Freemium: Turn your blog posts and articles into engaging social media videos in just a few minutes.🎤 Descript
Freemium: Edit your podcasts and videos by simply editing the text transcript like a document.
TRENDING
SpaceX Valuation Gets AI Boost – Elon Musk hinted that AI integration across Starlink and satellite operations is a key factor in SpaceX's potential $800 billion valuation in its latest share sale.
AI Grocery Prices Vary by Shopper – A Consumer Reports study found 75% of Instacart shoppers received different prices for identical items, with variations up to 23% that could cost families $1,200 per year.
Tencent Launches 3D Game Asset Generator – Tencent released Hunyuan 3D globally, which converts text or sketches into game-ready 3D models in minutes instead of weeks. Riot Games is testing it for Valorant, and it has over 3 million downloads on Hugging Face.
IT Worker Traps Scammer with ChatGPT – A Delhi professional used ChatGPT to build a fake payment page that captured a scammer's location and photo during a fraud attempt. The scammer begged for mercy when confronted with the evidence.
AI Santa Keeps Users Chatting for Hours – Tavus's AI Santa video chat has become so popular that users are hitting daily conversation limits. The improved version recognizes facial expressions, searches the web for gift ideas, and remembers previous conversations.
TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into Claude or Gemini)
Meeting Agenda Generator: Create structured, time-boxed agendas that keep meetings focused and productive
Build me an interactive Meeting Agenda Generator as a React artifact that creates professional, effective meeting agendas with built-in time management and best practices.
The console should include these sections:
1. **Meeting Setup** - Basic configuration:
• Meeting title input
• Meeting type selector:
- Brainstorm/Ideation
- Status Update/Standup
- Decision-Making
- Planning/Strategy
- Problem-Solving
- Kickoff
- Retrospective
- 1-on-1
- All-Hands
• Duration selector (15 min → 2 hours)
• Number of attendees (affects time recommendations)
• Meeting goal/objective (1-2 sentence input)
• "Generate Template" button
2. **Agenda Builder** - Main editing interface:
• Pre-populated agenda items based on meeting type
• Add/remove/reorder agenda items
• For each agenda item:
- Item title/topic
- Time allocation slider (5-30+ min)
- Item type badge (Discussion, Decision, Update, Action)
- Owner/presenter field
- Expected outcome description
- Materials needed (docs, slides, data)
• Running time counter showing total vs. allocated
• Time warning if agenda exceeds meeting duration
• "Auto-optimize timing" button to rebalance
3. **Time Boxing Visualizer** - Schedule preview:
• Visual timeline showing meeting flow
• Color-coded segments for each agenda item
• Start and end times displayed
• Buffer time indicators (5 min for transitions)
• "High-risk" items marked (discussions likely to run long)
• Parking lot section for off-topic items
• Break suggestions for meetings over 1 hour
4. **Pre-Work Assignments** - Preparation tracker:
• List of things attendees should do before meeting:
- Documents to review
- Data to gather
- Decisions to consider
- Questions to prepare
• Assign pre-work to specific people
• Due date for prep work (1-3 days before)
• Checkbox system for tracking completion
• "Send prep reminder" template
5. **Meeting Best Practices Panel** - Built-in guidance:
• Real-time feedback on agenda quality:
✓ Clear objective stated
✓ Appropriate time allocation
✓ Outcomes defined for each item
✓ Right people invited
✓ Pre-work assigned
⚠️ Too many topics for time
⚠️ No decision-maker identified
• Improvement suggestions specific to your agenda
• "Search Meeting Tips" button for current research
• Meeting effectiveness score (1-100)
6. **Template Library** - Quick starts:
• 12+ pre-built agenda templates:
- Weekly Team Standup
- Quarterly Business Review
- Product Launch Planning
- Performance Review 1-on-1
- Crisis Response Meeting
- Board Meeting
- Customer Discovery Call
- Sprint Planning
• Preview templates before using
• Customize any template
• Save your custom templates
• Share templates with team
7. **Export & Distribution** - Share options:
• Export formats:
- Google Calendar event (with agenda in description)
- Email template (ready to send)
- Notion/Confluence page
- PDF document
- Markdown file
• Include zoom/meet link placeholder
• Add RSVP tracking
• Attach relevant documents
• "Send Now" integration option
8. **Follow-Up Module** - Post-meeting actions:
• Quick notes section during meeting
• Action items tracker:
- What needs to be done
- Who's responsible
- Due date
- Status tracking
• Decision log (what was decided)
• "Was this meeting necessary?" reflection
• Meeting effectiveness rating
• Generate follow-up email automatically
Make it look like a professional document editor with:
• Clean, minimalist design
• Document-style layout (like Google Docs aesthetic)
• Left sidebar for templates and navigation
• Main editing canvas in center
• Right panel for guidance and tips
• Professional typography (clear hierarchy)
• Subtle grid and dividers
• Blue and gray color scheme (corporate professional)
• Print-ready styling
• Time indicators in consistent format
• Checklist styling with satisfying checkmarks
• Export preview showing final formatted output
When I click "Search Meeting Tips," use web search to find current best practices for meeting facilitation, time management techniques, and research on meeting effectiveness.What this does: Transforms chaotic meetings into focused, productive sessions by creating structured agendas with time boxing, pre-work assignments, and built-in best practices—helping you respect everyone's time and actually accomplish what you set out to do.
What this looks like:
WHERE WE STAND
✅ AI Can Now: Generate videos with synchronized dialogue, sound effects, and background music in a single pass—no need to add audio separately.
❌ Still Can't: Guarantee consistent characters across multiple video clips without special tools, making longer storylines difficult to produce.
✅ AI Can Now: Cut complex planning tasks from hundreds of hours to minutes, as shown by the Navy's submarine scheduling pilot.
❌ Still Can't: Replace human judgment for final decisions—the Navy system still requires people to review and approve AI-generated plans.
✅ AI Can Now: Combine multiple AI tools (video, voice, music, lip-sync) into unified workflows where everything happens on one timeline.
❌ Still Can't: Create production-ready content without human direction—users still need to write prompts, make creative choices, and refine outputs.
FROM THE WEB
RECOMMENDED LISTENING/READING/WATCHING
TV EPISODE: Black Mirror - "Be Right Back" (S2E1)
Martha's boyfriend Ash dies in a car accident. In her grief, she signs up for a service that uses his social media history to create an AI chatbot that talks like him. Then she takes it further.
This is Black Mirror at its most heartbreaking. The episode doesn't go for shock value—it just shows what it might look like to try replacing someone you loved with an algorithm trained on their digital footprint. Hayley Atwell is incredible as Martha, and Domhnall Gleeson manages to make the AI version of Ash feel both comforting and deeply wrong. The ending is ambiguous in the best way.
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
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