AI Definitions: Deepfakes
/Deepfakes – AI-produced images, photos or videos produced by AI tools designed to fool people into thinking the images are real.
Make Space for Growth & Surprises
The common-looking people
/The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason he made so many of them. - Abraham Lincoln, born Feb. 12, 1809
16 Articles about Social Media & AI
/Swarms of AI bots can sway people’s beliefs (through social media) – threatening democracy - The Conversation
Employers Turn to AI to Screen Candidates’ Social Media: Best Practices to Minimize Legal Threats – JD Supra
Grok AI is undressing anyone, including minors - The Verge
ChatGPT caricatures are taking over social media—Here’s what’s behind it. – Fast Company
A.I. Videos Have Flooded Social Media. No One Was Ready. – New York Times
OpenAI tests ChatGPT in group chats – Axios
AI Generated 'Boring History' Videos Are Flooding YouTube and Drowning Out Real History – 404 Media
Truth Social’s new AI search engine basically just pushes Fox News - The Verge
AI increased the time spent on Facebook and Instagram in Q2 – Tech Crunch
AI slop videos are ruining our scrolling – Axios
Teen safety: 6 tips for AI and social media – News Literacy Project
OpenAI and Anthropic researchers decry ‘reckless’ safety culture at Elon Musk’s xAI - Tech Crunch
Mark Zuckerberg is all in on AI as the new social media – The Verge
World-first social media wargame reveals how AI bots can swing elections – The Conversation
Oakland County man who made AI porn of social media influencer pleads guilty – Fox 2 Detroit
How AI and social media sites are still collecting kids’ data despite privacy laws – Technical.ly
AI Definitions: Convolutional neural networks
/Convolutional neural networks (CNNs or ConvNet) – These deep learning artificial neural networks, often used in computer vision for object recognition, are trained on thousands of images. It works similarly to how our human eye processes images. The network is trained to recognize "kernels," which are tiny pieces of an image. However, they can fail when they encounter the same objects under new lighting conditions or from a different angle. CNNs play a role in unlocking our phones with our faces, identifying road signs in self-driving cars, and automatically tagging people in our photo galleries. CNNs were first introduced in 1989 by NYU professor Yann LeCun and have been used with autonomous vehicles and security camera systems.
The Real Labor
/There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking. -Thomas Edison, born Feb. 11, 1847
16 Articles about Students Using & Impacted by AI
/Adelphi student accused of AI-generated plagiarism wins case in court - CBS News
How Gen Z Uses Gen AI—and Why It Worries Them – Harvard Business Review
Hey, ChatGPT: Where Should I Go to College? – New York Times
The dangers of not teaching students how to use AI responsibly – Phys.org
A.I. Is Coming to Class. These Professors Want to Ease Your Worries. – New York Times
Two-thirds of universities report AI use among doctoral students – Times Higher Ed
Purdue University Approves New AI Requirement For All Undergrads – Forbes
When should students begin learning about AI? – K-12 Dive
Voices of Student Success: A Liberal Arts College Goes All In on AI (podcast) – Inside Higher Ed
As students’ use of AI rises, so do concerns about its influence – Dallas News
AI’s future for students is in our hands – Brookings
LSU students face mounting AI cheating allegations – WAFB-TV
To avoid accusations of AI cheating, college students are turning to AI – NBC
Survey: College Students Lukewarm on AI Courses – Inside Higher Ed
How AI Supports Student Mental Health in Higher Education – Ed Tech
Students allegedly post AI generated photos targeting Plymouth teachers – WSBT-TV
AI Definitions: Agentic AI
/Agentic AI – Able to operate more independently than AI Agents, Agentic AI operates like a workflow, able to adjust its strategy and continuously learn as it encounters different situations. Agentic AI systems aren't passive tools waiting for input or mere automation. They can update plans based on intermediate findings without needing continuous human supervision. It’s not just following the rules as agents do, Agentic AI is supposed to be a colleague that can analyze a problem, propose a plan, and take action. Think of agentic AI as a team of digital colleagues where some agents are coordinators and some are specialists. It might call out to additional models or external systems, such as a search engine or querying a database to complete a task. This can be particularly effective in data-heavy fields such as biology, chemistry, and drug discovery. On a personal level, instead of simply helping you find a hotel room to book, agentic AI can plan the trip if it is given access to programs with your schedule and preferences. Agents can better handle the back-and-forth interactions that most real workflows require than rule-based systems. Despite its capabilities, AI agents can struggle in open-ended or unpredictable environments, especially when tasks lack clear structure or context. It will likely take years to for most agentic AI systems to be tailored to specific industries or problems.
How Many Friends Can We Have?
/The number of people with whom we can maintain a stable relationship is about 150, according to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar.
He says: “We devote around 40 percent of our available social time to our 5 most intimate friends and relations … and the remaining 60 percent in progressively decreasing amounts goes to the other 145.”
Friendship is the single most important factor influencing our health, well-being, and happiness. Creating and maintaining friendships is, however, extremely costly, in terms of both the time that has to be invested and the cognitive mechanisms that underpin them. Part of friendship is the act of mentalizing, or mentally envisioning the landscape of another's mind. Cognitively, this process is extraordinarily taxing, and as such, intimate conversations seem to be capped at about four people before they break down and form smaller conversational groups.
Read more at the BigThink
9 Things People are Trying to Get AI to Do
/Hey, ChatGPT: Where Should I Go to College? – New York Times
AI is reshaping police detective work, starting with cold cases - Axios
Here comes the advertising in AI chatbots - The Washington Post
Can A.I. Generate New Ideas? - New York Times
Team of tech titans makes bet that AI can be good for the soul - The Washington Post
BBC reporter tests AI anti-shoplifting tech – BBC
How facial recognition for bears can help ecologists manage wildlife – The Conversation
Our AI Future Is Already Here, It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed - Wall Street Journal
Can AI do your job? See the results from hundreds of tests. - The Washington Post
Rent a Human
/Rent a Human.ai is a new site promoted as a place to book humans for real-world tasks your AI can’t do. “According to the site, more than 81,000 "rentable humans" have already signed up to offer paid services to bots. The tasks themselves range from mundane errands like picking up packages to holding signs or delivering flowers to Anthropic. Rent-a-Human requires users to connect crypto wallets in order to get paid.” More at Mashable
AI Definitions: GPT
/GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) – GPT refers to a LLM (large language model) type of AI that first goes through an unsupervised period (no data labeling by humans) followed by a supervised "fine-tuning" phase (some labeling). G is for Generative because it generates words. P is for Pre-trained because it’s trained on a lot of text. This step is called pre-training because many language models (like the one behind ChatGPT) go through important additional stages of training known as fine-tuning to make them less toxic and easier to interact with. T stands for Transformer which is a relatively recent breakthrough in how neural networks are wired. They were introduced in a 2017 paper by Google researchers, and are used in many of the latest AI advancements, from text generation to image creation.
Toxic Family Members
/“Toxic family members will choose only to identify with the version of you that they had the most power over regardless of how you’ve changed.”
18 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism & Media
/Mon, Feb 9 - Creative Narrative for Journalists
What: Participants will learn how to apply literary writing tools and techniques to transform news writing into powerful, compelling prose that sparkles and shines.
Who: Moderator: Rodrigo Cervante; Zita Arocha is a bilingual journalist, author, and educator who leads memoir writing workshops through the Center for Mexican American Studies at UT Austin.
When: 5 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free to members
Sponsor: The National Association of Hispanic Journalists
Tue, Feb 10 - Using AI for Social Media
What: You’ll learn how practical, easy-to-use AI tools can help simplify your social media process without sacrificing your brand voice. Through real-world examples and demonstrations, we’ll show how AI can support content ideas, caption writing, and planning so your social media efforts feel more manageable and intentional.
When: 10 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: $10
Sponsor: Roanoke Small Business Development Center
Tue, Feb 10 - Journalist safety in the US: Protecting data and devices
What: A roundtable discussion on best practices for protecting data and devices for journalists in the U.S. Panelists will provide essential tips on safeguarding your data, protecting sources, and your legal rights during searches and seizures.
Who: Martin Shelton, Deputy Director of Digital Security, Freedom of the Press Foundation; Harlo Holmes, Chief Information Security Officer and Director of Digital Security, Freedom of the Press Foundation; Jen Nelson, Director of Pre-Publication Review and Journalist Support, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; Abigail LP, Program Manager, Digital Security, Freedom of the Press Foundation.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Committee to Protect Journalists
Tue, Feb 10 - Intro to AI for Your Small Business
What: A non-technical introduction to generative AI technology, tips for implementing AI effectively in your business, some great advice about managing the risks and ethical concerns involved, and will lead you a hands-on exercise using a generative AI tool. No matter what your level of technical know-how is, you’ll leave this session informed, confident and aware of both the risks and the benefits of this emerging technology.
Who: Isabel Krome, Temple Small Business Development Center
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Small Business Development Center, Temple University
Tue, Feb 10 - Covering Immigration Safely and with Care
What: A panel discussion with experienced reporters and editors who will speak about their experiences on the ground and in the newsroom. They’ll share: guidance for maintaining digital safety while reporting on a sensitive and highly scrutinized topic; how to prepare for assignments, protect sources and yourself, and what to include in your field safety kit; an editor’s perspective on risk assessment and newsroom support; and how to balance public interest reporting with real-world risks.
Who: Adrian Carrasquillo, National Immigration Correspondent, The Bulwark; Arelis Hernández, National Reporter, The Washington Post; Jon Collins, Senior Reporter, Minnesota Public Radio; Michelle Zenarosa, Editor-In-Chief, LA Public Press.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: National Press Club Journalism Institute
Tue, Feb 10 – Covering the Loneliness Epidemic: A Mental Health Reporting Project Webinar
What: We will explore the epidemic’s root causes and give you strategies to better cover people and communities experiencing loneliness and isolation.
Who: Poynter faculty Kerwin Speight and Dawn Fallik.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Poynter
Tue, Feb 10 - AI Applications and Safeguards for the Future
What: Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of the benefits of generative AI for core financial processes, how to assess data source suitability, and effective approaches to organizational buy-in and staff training.
Who: Mike Gellman, Founder/Principal Fiscal Strategies 4 Nonprofits, LLC and Sustainability Education 4 Nonprofits; Paul Preziotti, Partner Johnson Lambert LLP; Dave Fuge, Chief Innovation Officer Johnson Lambert LLP.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Blackbaud
Tue, Feb 10 - A guide to ethical interviewing
What: We will unpack how the current media landscape operates and share practical ways to conduct interviews more responsibly. Through real-world scenarios, we will highlight best practice and give you the chance to put what you’ve learned into action.
Who: Jeevan Sangha, Senior Editor, Shado.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Shado
Tue, Feb 10 - Introduction to Measuring Your Impact
What: In this introductory course for beginners, learn the basics of shifting focus from your nonprofit’s activities to its outcomes. We will demystify the language of outcomes measurement and guide you through the process of creating logic models for programs.
Who: Lori Guidry, Educational Programming Manager, Candid.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Candid.
Tue, Feb 10 - Creating Character Chemistry
What: We will explore love, loyalty, and rivalry by examining character chemistry, whether it’s passionate romance, steadfast friendship, or high-stakes hero–villain tension.
Who: Author Shannon A. Thompson, author of the Timely Death trilogy and the Bad Bloods series.
When: 7 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Orange County, Florida, Library System
Wed, Feb 11 - Citizen Journalism 101: Local Voices, Real Stories
What: Ready to tell stories that matter? Citizen Journalism 101 is a hands-on workshop for Malden community members who care about the city and want to tell its stories.
Who: Kristin Palpini is a journalist and feature writer with 20 years of experience reporting, editing, and leading newsrooms in Massachusetts.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Urban Media Arts
Wed, Feb 11 - Taking the AI Revolution Seriously: A Conversation with Dr. Bob Klitgaard
What: A conversation with Dr. Klitgaard discussing his work on the AI Revolution.
Who: Bob Klitgaard, former president of Claremont Graduate University and former dean of the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School.
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Claremont Graduate University
Wed, Feb 11 - Generating Plausible Choices and Consequences for Scenarios Using AI
What: In this session, you'll practice using LLMs to generate questions, choices, and consequences for scenario-based learning. Starting with sample prompts and partial information, you'll refine your prompts to improve results, building a scenario with realistic decision points and meaningful consequences. We'll also review the limitations of these tools and identify where you'll need to revise the text yourself.
Who: Christy Tucker, Learning Experience Design Consultant.
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Training Magazine Network
Thu, Feb 12 - Health Care Reporting 102
Who: Felice Freyer, previously at the Boston Globe & Providence Journal.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: New England First Amendment Coalition
Thu, Feb 12 - State of Direct Mail: Business Insights 2026
What: Get a first look at the trends shaping direct mail performance. Plus, get takeaways you can apply directly to your workflow.
Who: Chris Karpenko, Executive Director, USPS.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Lob
Thu, Feb 12 - When AI Becomes an Identity: Rethinking Governance in the Age of AI Agents
What: This session explores how organizations can both utilize the benefits of AI for identity security while successfully governing AI identities throughout their entire lifecycle.
Who: Gnana Thanikachalam, Global Head of IAM, Hert; Vibhuti Sinha, Chief Product Officer, Saviynt.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: BrightTalk
Thu, Feb 12 - A Seat at the Table: AI Could Be Your Thought Partner
What: AI is here to stay. How can educators get a head start on preparing young people for this new reality?
Who: Sean Cavanagh, Managing Editor, Education Week; Enrique Noguera, AI Strategist, Passaic County Community College.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Ed Week
Thu, Feb 12 - Canva: Using Bulk Create and ChatGPT (or Your Favorite AI Tool)
What: In this session, you’ll see how to pair Canva’s Bulk Create feature with ChatGPT (or your AI tool of choice) to move from “I don’t have time for this” to “Why didn’t I do this sooner?” You’ll learn how to design once and scale your content across multiple formats, audiences, and use cases without sacrificing quality or consistency.
Who: Danielle Watkins, Chief Learning Experience Officer, Zenith Performance Solutions.
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Training Magazine Network
To Do Nothing
/To do nothing is to hold yourself still so that you can perceive what is actually there. - Jenny Odell
Is your camera documenting reality – or negotiating with it?
/A Reddit user held a phone up to a deliberately blurry, pixelated image of the Moon on his computer. Happy to oblige, his phone snapped a nice clear picture, full of craters and shadows which didn't actually appear in the original photo. The reality is that AI will recognise the Moon and fill in details when the camera can't pick them up. It's called computational photography. Your phone goes far beyond collecting the light that hits your camera's sensors. It's guessing what the image would look like if the camera was better and then building it for you, he says. The next time you take a photo, ask yourself, is your camera documenting reality – or negotiating with it? -BBC
17 Articles about Using AI
/The Downside to Using AI for All Those Boring Tasks at Work - Wall Street Journal
The Problem With Using AI in Your Personal Life – The Atlantic
6 Best Gemini Photo Editing Prompts in 2026: How to Get Better AI Images – eWeek
Building the Brain of Your Accessibility AI – Ted Drake
How AI coding agents work—and what to remember if you use them - ArsTechnica
I Have Over 16,000 Unread Emails. Gmail’s New AI Wants to Help. - Wall Street Journal
How AI is affecting me as a human (and journalist) - Axios
ChatGPT is overrated. Here’s what to use instead. – Washington Post
AI Courses Are Failing Workers. Pragmatic AI Training Offers a Better Way. – HackerNoon
ChatGPT’s year-end review knows way too much. How to fix your privacy settings. - Washington Post
LLM adoption is roughly on trend, but the underlying drivers are shifting –Epoch AI
A.I. Has Arrived in Gmail. Here’s What to Know. – New York Times
Your chatbot keeps a file on you. Here’s how to delete it. - Washington Post
Understanding the Generative AI User – Toward Data Science
Explainable AI in Chat Interfaces– NN/G
An AI product’s position on the personality spectrum shapes how people engage with it – UX Design
Google debuts 'Me Meme' feature letting users turn their own selfies into shareable memes – Mashable
How Americans are using AI at work, according to a new Gallup poll – Associated Press
Your trauma
/Your trauma can be someone else’s coping manual.
Make space
/Make space for growth & surprises
26 Articles about AI & Writing
/Wikipedia’s guide to spotting AI writing has become a manual for hiding it. – ArsTechnica
Lit bots beware: AI creative writing faces reader skepticism, study shows- PhysOrg
Would you use AI to break writer’s block? We asked 5 experts – The Conversation
I had ChatGPT write my resume, LinkedIn Summary and cover letter — then asked Gemini if I would get the job – Tom’s Guide
Funders ‘should support shared AI tools for translational research’ – Research Professional News
Fine-Grained Detection of AI-Generated Writing in the Biomedical Literature – BioRxiv
Visualizing poetry with deep semantic understanding and consistency evaluation - Nature
How to Spot AI Hallucinations Like a Reference Librarian – Card Catalog for Life
Researchers who use generative AI to write papers are publishing more – Chemical & Engineering News
In 2026, AI will outwrite humans - Harvard’s Nieman Lab
Why Does A.I. Write Like … That? – New York Times
Don’t Let AI Ruin the Em Dash – Wall Street Journal
What are the clues that ChatGPT wrote something? – Washington Post
AI is writing about half of the articles on the internet - Axios
America is in a literacy crisis. Is AI the solution or part of the problem? - CNN
10 Ways AI Is Ruining Your Students’ Writing – Chronicle of Higher Ed
Stop AI-Shaming Our Precious, Kindly Em Dashes—Please - The Ringer
A researcher’s view on using AI to become a better writer – The Hechinger Report
Beyond ‘we used ChatGPT’: a new way to declare AI in research - Research Professional News
AI tool detects LLM-generated text in research papers and peer reviews – Nature
An Ancient Answer to AI-Generated Writing – Inside Higher Ed
My students compared my writing against ChatGPT – and they all preferred the AI – The Independent
Trump admin reportedly plans to use AI to write federal regulations - Engadget
Can researchers stop AI making up citations? – Nature
’Stranger Things’ Creators Accused by Fans of Using AI To Write Series Finale - Vice
Writing Labs are an Answer to AI – Inside Higher Ed
The most durable advantage in a world of abundant machine intelligence
/In a world of abundant machine intelligence, the most durable advantage will be broad intellectual range. As routine analysis becomes automated, what distinguishes professionals is the ability to synthesize across domains, to see patterns that specialists miss, to exercise judgment. The best candidates think independently, navigate ambiguity without waiting for instruction, analyze the questions that were not asked but should have been and own their decisions. They use A.I. — as a tool but not a crutch. Where evidence is mixed and incomplete, professionals must possess the skills to make things better where machines cannot. - Blair Effron writing in The New York Times