How Digital Twins are being Used

Digital twins can answer in the real person’s voice and apply their thinking on demand for anyone who wants to chat online or call. Some companies now build twins that sit on Zoom calls for C.E.O.s or manage projects while their owners are on vacation. Professors at Clemson University deploy them to answer student questions at 2 a.m. A sex therapist uses her digital twin to offer individual counseling to hundreds of people at once. A man in Berlin created a twin after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, so his wife could still talk to him before bed. -New York Times

20 Articles about How AI is Affecting Jobs

AI is changing older workers’ careers, research finds — here’s how - CNBC

Workers are crossing job boundaries with AI, OpenAI research shows – Axios

How AI is impacting the job market – Harvard Business Review

Can AI can help job-seekers facing one of the hardest obstacles? – NPR

Why Gen Z May Have An Unexpected Edge In The AI Job Market – Forbes

Could AI take your job? Some workers in China already know the answer - The Guardian

AI Is Pushing Older Employees Straight Out of the Workforce, New Report Finds – Futurism

Could A.I. Do Your Job? We Put Agents to the Test. - New York Times

Despite AI hype, Google’s data shows workers aren’t automating themselves away – Arstechnica

Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario – Wall Street Journal

For those with criminal records, AI is breaking down barriers to employment – NPR

The number of job titles that involve AI, even outside the tech world, is surging – NBC News

How Top Economists Think AI Will Change the Job Market – Wall Street Journal

The Hidden Workers Most Threatened by A.I. – New York Times

AI Is a Boon to Ambitious Recent Grads – Wall Street Journal

Is AI putting graduates out of work already? – Economist

AI Prompts a Rise in Career Changes – Revolio Labs

You Can Now Get a Religious Exemption From Using AI at Work – Futurism

The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn’t coming anytime soon – The Guardian

‘Can AI Do My Job?’ Is the Wrong Question: Here are three better ones to ask. – The Atlantic

Laying a Foundation

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. -David Brinkley

AI & Formation

The comment “AI could have done it in five minutes” is not really about speed. It is a moral revaluation. It assumes that what matters is the output, not the ordeal; the image, not the seeing; the product, not the person becoming capable of making it. AI offers competence without apprenticeship. Fluency without understanding. A student who internalizes that pattern does not become lazier; he becomes less formed, less present, less able to bear the weight of difficulty without reaching for a prompt. -Chris Sibben

20 Surprising Things AI can do now

Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science – OpenAI

AI moves into family life – Axios

Google Earth now has image generation built in – Digital Digging

How AI Agents Broaden the Scope of Knowledge Work – Harvard Business Review

In This Costa Rican Forest, Monkeys Come Face-to-Face With A.I. – New York Times

New platforms in China are paying people to license their likeness for AI-generated dramas and ads – Rest of World

How AI is transforming the world of analytical chemistry – Chemistry World

How Teaching A.I. Endangered Languages Can Help Save Them – New York Times

A self-driving Waymo just reported its own passengers to police – Fast Company

Could A.I. Find Brazil’s Next Pelé? - New York Times

Social media’s next evolution: user-controlled algorithms with the help of AI – Tech Crunch

AI makes Pompeii victim’s final moments look shockingly real – PopSci

The AI-powered World Cup runs on thousands of data workers - Rest of World

They Spent Years on a Math Problem. Then They Were Scooped by A.I. - New York Times

How AI helps spot wildfires before 911 calls – Axios

A look inside Dataland in Los Angeles, dedicated entirely to A.I.-generated art - New York Times

How AI is helping fight the latest Ebola outbreak – Semafor

Doctors Inject Human Subjects With First Vaccine Designed by AI – Futurism  

Concern for study looking into whether conversations with AI could change viewpoints  - Retraction Watch

A.I. Chatbot Helps a $100 Thrift Store Painting Sell for Over $250,000 - New York Times

At an Angle

Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely at an angle. -Andre Gide

Survey: AI Use Among Students

A new longitudinal survey shows AI has moved from a novelty to a routine part of student life, with more than 80% of college students using AI academically in the past six months.  Nearly a third of students are now using it 11 or more times a week for school or work-related tasks. Some professors are still putting blanket bans on AI. But employers are not: The share of job interviews that included AI-related questions has jumped from 11.6% to 42.6% over the past three years. -Axios

17 Articles about AI’s impact on Business Operations

Corporate America may be using AI to cut jobs, but small businesses are using it to keep them – The Guardian

How AI Agents Broaden the Scope of Knowledge Work – Harvard Business Review

AI Is Writing Legal Filings. Some of Them Are Completely Made Up. Here Is What That Means for Your Business – Business Attorney Chicago

AI Is Changing How Customers Choose Your Business – Harvard Business Review

AI Knows What You Did Online. Now Your Employer Does, Too. – Wall Street Journal

Starting or running a business with AI? There are legal risks you can’t afford to ignore – The Conversation

26 Meta employees sue, alleging AI-driven layoff picks hit workers on medical and parental leave – AP

When AI Puts Gen Z in the C-Suite – Wall Street Journal

Ford rehires ‘gray beard’ engineers after AI falls short – Tech Crunch

Databricks Releases General AI Agents for Businesses – Wall Street Journal

How California is preparing for AI workforce disruption – Axios

How Companies Are Managing AI Token Spend – Wall Street Journal

A.I. doubles is the new productivity hack for CEOs and Harvard profs - New York Times

What AI Can’t—or Shouldn’t—Do for You – Wall Street Journal

Teaching AI how people work is fraught with problems – The Economist

AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making – Hermit-Tech

Tech Workers Maxed Out Their A.I. Use. Now They’re Trying to Minimize It. - New York Times

When you are angry

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. -Ambrose Bierce

Digital twins in Church

To meet the growing needs of his congregation, Justin Lester created an A.I. duplicate of himself. “A lot of our churches are turning into beautiful museums,” Lester said. “We’re living in the future, whether we like it or not. We can’t afford to sit this one out.” -New York Times

11 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism & Media

Tue, Aug 4 - Climate Blueprint: Don’t Underestimate the Impact of Climate Stories

What: We'll discuss the importance of understanding your journalism's impact, how to track impact and report it back to audiences, and why this work is so critical for ensuring that climate journalism becomes more of a priority within newsrooms.

Who: Nina Ignaczak, Planet Detroit; Heather May; Great Salt Lake Collaborative.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: Solutions Journalism

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Tue, Aug 4 - ChatGPT Work for Newsrooms

What: A virtual session on moving from one-off prompts to practical tools built around the work journalists already do. See how reporters and editors can use ChatGPT Work to research stories, analyze documents and data, prepare interviews, develop coverage plans, and turn dense source material into clear, sourced briefs. We’ll demonstrate how agents, skills, and custom apps can transform a useful workflow into something an entire newsroom can reuse.

Who: Evan Hirsch OpenAI for News, OpenAI.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: OpenAI Academy

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Tue, Aug 4 - Get started with ChatGPT Work

What: We’ll show you how Chat and Work complement each other. You’ll see Work tackle two projects from start to finish: building an offsite planning workbook from scattered materials and creating a leadership presentation from business data and team updates.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: OpenAI Academy

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Wed, Aug 5 - The Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

What: Whether you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, or want to grow your marketing strategies, this session will equip you with the tools and strategies to elevate your online presence.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: Small Business Development Center, Widener University

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Thu, Aug 6 - The Formula for Social Media Success

What: This workshop will help you learn how to prioritize things and give you a clear formula to be successful on social media.

Who: Ray-Sidney Smith, Digital Marketing Strategist, Hootsuite Global Brand Ambassador.

When: 10 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: $45

Sponsor: Small Business Development Center, Duquesne University

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Thu, Aug 6 - AI and Local Ad Planning, Buying & Selling

What: Media buying agencies increasingly use AI to plan and execute their campaigns, while media sellers use AI to create proposals, design creative and manage assets. How are AI tools enhancing the planning, buying and selling process? Industry leaders from both sides of the transaction talk about this rising trend.

Who: Raj Khare, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director, SureWaves; Evan Rutchik, President & Chief Strategy Officer; Viamedia; Jennifer Hungerbuhler, EVP, Head of Local Video and Audio Investment Denstu Media U.S.; Christopher Martinez, VP, Advanced Advertising, Hearst Television; Nicole Madtes, Senior Director National Sales, The E.W. Scripps Company; Joe Cerone, Founder, Cerone Advisory Group.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: TVNewsCheck

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Thu, Aug 6 - Codex bootcamp 201: Team workflows

What: Build on the Codex fundamentals by learning how to configure Codex for consistent, repeatable team workflows. We’ll cover shared context and repository guidance, approvals and sandboxing defaults, MCP and tool connections, reusable skills, automations, and worktrees.

Who: Sean Lubbers Technical Success, OpenAI; Marcus Stallworth Builder ADM, OpenAI; Palash Sushil, Matey AI Deployment Manager, OpenAI.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: OpenAI Academy

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Thu, Aug 6 - Measuring Impact for Civic Discourse: Ask Me Anything for News Leaders

What: An interactive briefing to learn about how dozens of local media are actively measuring journalism’s civic impact — and examining ways to build trust across audiences and geographies.

Who: American Press Institute Senior Vice President Samantha Ragland; American Press Institute Senior Director of Partnerships and Development Kevin Loker.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: American Press Institute

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Thu, Aug 6 - Analyzing data

What: In this hands-on lab, you will practice turning that messy starting point into an operating plan your team can actually use.  We will use AI to clarify the project goal, identify milestones, assign responsibilities, surface dependencies, name risks, and define the decisions that need owner input. You will also learn how to ask for a plan that stays reviewable, with assumptions, unresolved questions, and next steps clearly separated from confirmed information.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: OpenAI Academy

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Thu, Aug 6 - ChatGPT Work for sales teams

What: Learn how sales teams can start using ChatGPT Work for common workflows. This session will focus on practical ways newly enabled users can begin exploring Work with the tools and context they already use.

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: OpenAI Academy

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Fri, Aug 7 – Meet Sisi Wei

What: IRE's Investigative Editors and Managers of Color Community is holding free ongoing webinars aimed at helping professionals connect. Please register below to sign-up! We will send you a link.

Who: Sisi Wei is the Chief Impact Officer of The Markup and CalMatters.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free                                                   

Sponsor: Investigative Reporters and Editors

More Info

The Value of Studying Language in an AI World

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has described an English major as possibly the most successful major, as it is the programming language of AI. Robert Goldstein, chief operating officer of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said last year the company places greater emphasis on graduates who have studied history, English, and other humanities disciplines. -Rest of World

Make Him Mad

To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad. -Oliver Wendell Holmes

Making fake satellite images just got easier

Google spent twenty years building Google Earth’s reputation as the reference the world checks against. Today it added a button that makes things up. Google Earth on the web now has image generation built in, powered by Nano Banana 2. The forgery does not have to look convincing on its own. It inherits the credibility of the map it was born on. -Digital Digging

17 Articles about AI & Data Science from July 2026

Successful data science and AI projects do not begin with the latest model. They begin with a clear problem, reliable data, appropriate evaluation, realistic costs, and a plan for turning results into action.

How to Efficiently Prompt Claude Code  

A hands-on guide to tracking machine learning experiments, logging models, and reproducing results

How Much Does It Actually Cost to Run a Local LLM?  

How I’m Making Sure My Analytics Career Doesn’t Get Eaten by AI  

10 YouTube channels that will keep You ahead in AI engineering that include paper breakdowns, coding tutorials, and industry analysis

How to Write a Data Scientist Resume in 2026: Complete Guide   

Why “Neural” Processing Could Enable the Next Big Leap for Geospatial

Data Scientists Are Becoming AI Managers, Not Model Builders

Why Convolutional Neural Networks Still Matter in Modern AI  

How AI is forcing a redesign of security itself: Every product and every part of the architecture must now be geared or retrofitted to detect incidents at runtime  

Eight NATO countries plan to link their military satellites into a “mega-constellation” to enable “high-speed communications, intelligence and missile tracking”   

The Beginner's Guide to Neural Networks  

Demystifying loop engineering: Get more from AI agents, avoid loopmaxxing  

The artificial intelligence arms race has shifted from a one-dimensional battle over model intelligence to a multi-layered infrastructure war 

A new working group in the geospatial industry is focused on maritime intelligence and looking for participation from satellite operators, analytics firms, government agencies and academic institutions

5 Agentic Workflows to Automate Your Data Science Pipeline

That's Just the Way I Am

“Sorry, but that is the way I am.. I was like this in the beginning, am now, and ever shall be…” is a handy motto and delusion to hang around your neck when you don’t want to grow up.

Opportunity

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. -Henry Ford (born July 30, 1863)

AI Definitions: The Scaling Laws

The Scaling Laws - These laws essentially say, “The more data and computing power you feed an AI system the better it would perform.” It is the expectation that AI can take on more human responsibilities and solve increasingly complicated tasks if given more computing power.

More AI Definitions

Knowledge only takes you so far

My guess is that our creativity and leaps of insight come not from what we know — knowledge — but from how we know it. Unlike current LLMs, our brains are capable of continuous learning. Right now, the smartness of LLMs is based primarily on their encyclopedic knowledge — on extracting the intelligence humans have structured into our encyclopedias, books, and everything we write. That will probably not be enough to go all the way to the kind of creativity and insight human brains can produce. That variety of intelligence will likely require algorithms for continuous learning, or a different design than neural nets alone. -Kevin Kelly

Your Pain

Finding a different way to interact with your pain is hard. People have the most difficulty embracing the paradox of acceptance. Our instinct is to run as far away from our pain as possible, to be as safe as we can be. Making a decision to step into it rather than trying to get rid of it can be excruciatingly difficult. Feeling the intensity of those difficult, painful emotions and sensations can feel very dark and very lonely. I see it in all forms of suffering. The depression that never seems to lift, the drink that has to be drunk, the highway we cannot drive on, the hands that must be washed over and over and over. The reality is that most people are willing to embrace acceptance only when they have run out of options – when what they have been doing, often for years, simply doesn’t work anymore. This is a dark place that feels like there is no light to guide you out. It can be devastating. 

To be able to connect and embrace a lifetime’s worth of suffering in service of a valued end, that – in its very essence – is acceptance. 

Joseph Trunzo writing in Aeon