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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
OpenAI's New Social Network Has One Creepy Catch
TLDR: OpenAI is building a social media network where you might have to scan your eyes to prove you're human.
The Story:
OpenAI is working on a new social media platform that keeps out AI bots. A small team of fewer than 10 people is building it. To join, you may need to verify your identity using Apple's Face ID or a device called the Orb, which scans your eyeballs. Sam Altman co-founded the company that makes the Orb, called Tools for Humanity.
About 17 million people have already scanned their eyes using the Orb. That's way short of the company's goal of one billion users. Several countries have banned or investigated the technology over privacy concerns.
Its Significance:
Sam Altman helped flood the internet with AI bots. Now he wants to build a place without them. But to get in, you might have to give your eye scans to one of Silicon Valley's most controversial figures. The platform would also let users share AI-made content. So is a "human-only" network really human-only if everything on it is made by AI or is this another bid to capture coveted biometric data that both private companies and governments have been pushing for in recent years?
QUICK TAKES
The story: Elon Musk is thinking about joining his rocket company SpaceX with his AI company xAI. The combined company could be worth $1.5 trillion, the biggest stock offering ever.
Your takeaway: Musk wants to put AI data centers in space, powered by the sun. He says it could happen in 2 to 3 years. This could change how AI companies compete for power and resources.
The story: Apple just made its second-biggest purchase ever. Israeli company Q.ai makes technology that understands what you're saying without you making a sound. It reads lip movements and facial expressions.
Your takeaway: This could show up in future AirPods or Apple Glasses. Imagine controlling your devices just by mouthing words silently.
The story: A new AI can look at a million letters of DNA and predict what happens when genes change. AlphaGenome beat existing tools in 25 out of 26 tests.
Your takeaway: Doctors could use this to find genetic diseases faster and earlier. It's a big step toward personalized medicine.
TOOLS ON OUR RADAR
📅 SavvyCal Paid: Calendar/Scheduling Scheduling tool that lets recipients overlay their calendar to find times.
📋 Height Freemium: Automate project management with AI that creates tasks, updates status, and manages workflows.
🔄 Habitify Freemium: Cross-platform habit tracker with detailed analytics and focus mode.
🎨 Krita Free and Open Source: Paint digital art with professional brushes, free alternative to Photoshop and Procreate.
TRENDING
Half of Employees Using Unapproved AI Tools - 49% of workers use AI tools their company didn't approve, and 69% of executives do it too, with 33% sharing company secrets.
Pentagon Clashes with Anthropic Over Military AI - The military and AI company Anthropic can't agree on safety limits for using Claude, with the Pentagon pushing back on restrictions against weapon targeting and domestic surveillance.
Google's Project Genie Creates Explorable 3D Worlds - Type what you want and Google builds a 3D world you can walk through, but it only lasts 60 seconds and costs $250 a month.
Figure AI Robot Completes Longest Autonomous Task - A robot did 61 actions on its own over 4 minutes, the longest ever without human help, loading a dishwasher and fixing its own mistakes.
Apple Blocked $1 Billion in Payment Fraud - Apple's AI security stopped over $1 billion in fake transactions last quarter during its best quarter ever at $143.8 billion.
Cisco Releases AI Agent Communication Standards - New rules called MCP and A2A help AI assistants talk to each other and work together on tasks.
TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini)
Instrument Practice Planner: Structure your practice sessions, break through plateaus, and track your progress like a pro
Build a fully functional Instrument Practice Planner as an interactive React app. Render the working application immediately - no code display.
**My instrument**: [Guitar, piano, drums, violin, etc.]
**Current level**: [Beginner, intermediate, advanced]
**Practice time available**: [Minutes per day]
Create these sections:
1. **Session Builder**
• Design your practice routine:
🎵 Warm-up (scales, exercises): X min
🎵 Technique (specific skills): X min
🎵 Repertoire (songs/pieces): X min
🎵 New material (learning): X min
🎵 Play for fun (jam time): X min
• Drag to reorder sections
• Total time calculator
• "Generate Session Plan" button
• "Search [Instrument] Practice Routines" button
2. **Technique Tracker**
• Skills to work on:
- Add technique (e.g., barre chords, arpeggios)
- Difficulty level: 🔥 to 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
- Current comfort: 0-100%
- Target tempo/goal
• Track improvement over time
• "Level up!" notifications when you progress
• Weak spots highlighted
3. **Repertoire Manager**
• Your song library:
- Songs you're learning
- Songs you know
- Songs you want to learn
• Status: Learning → Rough → Solid → Performance-ready
• Difficulty rating
• Last practiced date
• "Needs attention" flags for neglected pieces
4. **Plateau Breaker**
• Stuck on something? Interventions:
- Slow it down 50%
- Isolate the hard part
- Try a different fingering
- Record yourself and listen
- Take a 2-day break
• "What's frustrating you?" input
• Specific exercises for common blocks
• "Search How to Play [Technique]" button
5. **Practice Streak**
• Daily log: Did you practice? ✓
• Current streak counter
• Longest streak record
• Minutes logged this week/month
• "You've practiced X hours total"
• Calendar heatmap of practice days
6. **Progress Milestones**
• Set and track goals:
- Learn [song] by [date]
- Master [technique] by [date]
- Play for X minutes daily for 30 days
• Progress bar for each goal
• Milestone celebrations
• "Next milestone" always visible
Design specs:
- Music studio DAW aesthetic
- Faders, knobs, channel strips
- Waveform visualizations
- Dark interface with accent colors (purple, cyan, amber)
- VU meters and level indicators
- Track/channel layout for practice sections
- Recording studio control room vibes
- Equalizer graphics
- Playback transport bar styling
- Glowing buttons and smooth animations
- Professional audio software feel
When search buttons are clicked, use web search to find practice routines, tutorials, and technique breakdowns for the specific instrument.What this does: Brings structure to noodling around. Build focused practice sessions, track the techniques you're developing, manage your song repertoire, and break through plateaus with targeted interventions. Practice smarter, progress faster.
What this looks like:
WHERE WE STAND(based on today’s news)
✅ AI Can Now: Complete 61 household tasks without human help
❌ Still Can't: Handle unexpected interruptions like a pet or child walking through
✅ AI Can Now: Analyze 1 million letters of DNA in a single pass
❌ Still Can't: Predict how multiple gene changes interact with each other
✅ AI Can Now: Generate 3D worlds you can walk through from a text prompt
❌ Still Can't: Keep those worlds stable for more than 60 seconds
FROM THE WEB
RECOMMENDED LISTENING/READING/WATCHING
Sam Harris talks with Turing Award winner Judea Pearl about why current LLMs probably won't lead to AGI. Pearl literally wrote the book on causality, and he explains why statistical pattern-matching is fundamentally different from understanding cause and effect. The conversation also covers alignment concerns and Pearl's personal history, including losing his son Daniel Pearl. About two hours, worth the time if you want a rigorous case for AI's current limitations.
Here’s an un-boring way to invest that billionaires have quietly leveraged for decades
If you have enough money that you think about buckets for your capital…
Ever invest in something you know will have low returns—just for the sake of diversifying?
CDs… Bonds… REITs… :(
Sure, these “boring” investments have some merits. But you probably overlooked one historically exclusive asset class:
It’s been famously leveraged by billionaires like Bezos and Gates, but just never been widely accessible until now.
It outpaced the S&P 500 (!) overall WITH low correlation to stocks, 1995 to 2025.*
It’s not private equity or real estate. Surprisingly, it’s postwar and contemporary art.
And since 2019, over 70,000 people have started investing in SHARES of artworks featuring legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso through a platform called Masterworks.
23 exits to date
$1,245,000,000+ invested
Annualized net returns like 17.6%, 17.8%, and 21.5%
My subscribers can SKIP their waitlist and invest in blue-chip art.
Investing involves risk. Past performance not indicative of future returns. Reg A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd
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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