Brains & Feet
/You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. -Dr Seuss
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
13 Articles about Social Media & AI
/10 Best AI Tools for Social Media (July 2025) – UniteAI
Was That Amazing Video in Your Feed Real or AI? Tech Platforms Are Struggling to Let You Know – Wall Street Journal
Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok launches into antisemitic rant amid updates - Washington Post
LinkedIn CEO says AI writing assistant is not as popular as expected - Tech Crunch
Meta AI users confide on sex, God and Trump. Some don’t know it’s public. – Washington Post
Instagram users complain of mass bans, pointing finger at AI – Tech Crunch
Mark Zuckerberg's supersized AI ambitions – Axios
How AI Mode and AI Overviews work based on patents and why we need new strategic focus on SEO – Search Engine Land
OpenAI takes down covert operations using social media tied to China and other countries – NPR
TikTok launches TikTok AI Alive, a new image-to-video tool – Tech Crunch
US government is using AI for unprecedented social media surveillance – New Scientist
Musk's xAI "will pay Telegram $300 million to deploy its Grok chatbot on the messaging app. – Reuters
Meta looks for an AI reset – Platformer
Forward-deployed Engineers
/Forward-deployed engineers are embedded inside a single customer’s company, where they look for ways to improve business processes with new AI technology. A kind of business consultant, their job is partly to help companies disrupt themselves, which requires creativity combined with technical acumen. -Semafor
Should Creators Learn from the Masters?
/Should we teach artists and other creatives to recognize, understand and dissect classic works in their field or should we encourage them to plunge into creative self-expression, apart from the cultural context?
If beginners are taught to internalize the classics before finding their own voice, won't they be nudged to conform to expectations and tempted to stay inside the box of what has gone before them? Are they wasting time learning how others express themselves rather than learning how to do so themselves? Will stepping in the shoes of the masters cause them to avoid pursuing ideas outside of the norm?
Unconventional artists and visionaries have often been shunned by peers—only later to be revered by another generation. If these craftsmen had conformed to their time, if they had stifled their inner voices, they might not have stepped away from the crowd. We would have never had the chance to appreciate their genius.
On the other hand, if we teach students to venture out on their own, aren't we just treating them like toddlers, telling them to go play in the paint—without adult guidance and supervision? Failing to study the masters means missing the opportunity stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before and peer further down the road. Keeping them away from the classics could mean failing to grasp the value of the great works that have stood the test of time. How can students understand where their own feet are planted in history unless they know about others who have struggled and flourished?
Perhaps we need both sides, and the danger lies in slavishly taking one extreme position or the other. Perhaps we can learn the rules before breaking them and avoid simply mimicking the masters. Perhaps we can tap into the echoes of their inspiration rather than plunging into our own narcissistic self-expression.
Asking, "Am I creating to please myself or to please others?" may bring clarity. If you are creating to please yourself, then diving into what’s culturally hot may take you away from your goal. But if you have decided to create for the crowd, then knowing what is already valued seems like a reasonable starting point.
Stephen Goforth
19 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism & Media
/Tue, July 15 - Build Faster with ChatGPT: How to Use AI as a Co-Founder, for Students
What: AI-powered strategies to help you tackle your startup challenges. Learn how to prompt and deploy ChatGPT to streamline idea generation, automate marketing, conduct smart market research, and even generate visuals - so you leave with practical tools and confidence to build your venture faster and smarter.
Who: Siya Raj Purohit Education, OpenAI; Harsha Ravindran CEO Expop; Heerraa Ravindran Director of School & Student Engagement, Expop.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Expop & OpenAI Academy
Tue, July 15 - Blending personal narrative and reporting in essays and books
What: The journey toward creating the nonfiction book, “Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery,” which is equal parts memoir and journalism.
Who: Mallary Tenore Tarpley, assistant professor of practice at the University of Texas at Austin.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Society for Features Journalism
Wed, July 16 - Misinformation: Truth Deserves Defenders, with Mikheil Benidze
What: This session will help you lead educated conversations within your organization about what qualifies as misinformation and disinformation, how it spreads, and what we can do to expose it. You’ll learn about leading tools and tactics to identify false or misleading content, and explore how to respond with clarity and integrity.
Who: Mikheil Benidze Zinc Network Co-Founder and Programs Director; Marnie Webb TechSoup CEO.
When: 8 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: TechSoup
More Info
Wed, July 16 - Creating ads that connect and convert
What: Practical strategies for turning great creative into a powerful growth engine. Discover how to: Confidently use Canva’s creative tools and Meta’s ad platform Improve ad performance using creative best practices Build Reels-ready content at scale.
Who: Erin Harlan Product Marketing Manager, Canva; Cecilia LV Strategic Partnerships Lead, Meta
When: multiple options
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Canva
Wed, July 16 - Covering protests safely
What: This session will go over best practices for covering protests and what legal rights student journalists have while doing their work.
Who: Ray Black III has worked as a freelance photojournalist for over 20 years; Jonathan Gaston-Falk is a staff attorney at the Student Press Law Center; Ben McNeely is editorial advisor for student media at NC State University.
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: College Media Association
Wed, July 16 - Website Rhythm: Creating Effective Layout and Design to Guide Users Smoothly Through Your Site
What: Learn how to improve the look and feel of your digital products as we turn our focus to user experience and user interface. This training will be useful whether you maintain your own website or use a template-based digital publishing platform.
Who: Jeffrey Case, Coastal Carolina University.
When: 5 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: College Media Association
Wed, July 16 – Intro to Review-Writing
What: Advice for emerging writers alongside experienced arts journalists who regularly work with national outlets who want to practice cultural critique and for artists and audiences who want to look inside the critic's process.
Who: Associate Broad Street Review editor Kyle V. Hiller; Critics An Nichols, Stephen Silver.
When: 6:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free with a $25 suggested donation
Sponsor: Broad Street Review
Wed, July 16 - Disability Narrative Webinar Series
What: This series is designed to empower journalists, storytellers, and advocates with the tools to create accurate, inclusive and impactful narratives about disability.
Who: Joel Searls Journalist, Producer, Marine Corps Reservist; J.P. Lawrence Army Veteran, Reporter, Star Tribune.
When: 7 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Military Veterans in Journalism
Wed, July 16 - 7 Steps to Unlocking New Possibilities
What: For journalists to reimagine what’s possible in their careers. It’s about giving yourself choices in an industry where too many have been blindsided without a plan. What if you could create options now, before you need them?
Who: Aundrea Cline-Thomas Entrepreneur, Former WCBS-TV Anchor/Reporter.
When: 7 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsors: Journalism & Women Symposium and The Rewrite
Thu, July 17 - Counter-Narratives: Storytelling Is Power, with Pedmia Shatu Tita
What: We’ll examine how storytelling can be used not just for awareness, but for advocacy, healing, and systems change.
Who: Pedmia Shatu Tita, Founder of ‚Global Initiative for Digital Inclusion and Communication
When: 8 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: TechSoup
Thu, July 17 - Back to school strategies that grow audience and revenue
What: We’ll explore how to create high-performing content packages, newsletters, and social media campaigns that resonate with parents, students, and educators. You’ll also learn how to position your content for sponsorship, develop school-focused advertiser partnerships, and use data to drive results.
Who: David Arkin, Founder, David Arkin Consulting.
When: 11 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Local Media Association
Thu, July 17 - The Future Of Measurement: Driving Campaign Performance By Aligning Media And Creative With AI
What: A forward-looking discussion on the future of measurement. We’ll explore how AI is helping brands unite media and creative, understand campaign effectiveness in new ways, and enhance brand equity through smarter, data-driven strategies.
Who: Rachelle Minnis, Chief Media Solutions Officer, Kantar North America; Michele Fisher, Global Director, Business Strategy, Microsoft; Cory Treffiletti, Chief Marketing & Digital Officer, Rembrandt; Maria Pavlova, Manager, Marketing Science, Meta.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Kantar
Thu, July 17 - AI or Humans? The Future of Learning According to Neuroscience
What: Fresh research on the key differences between humans and AI, revealing what each approach gets right (and wrong) when it comes to creating impactful learning experiences. You'll learn how factors like attention, memory, motivation, cognitive workload, and even humor impact learning outcomes.
Who: Carmen Simon, Ph.D. Cognitive Neuroscientist, Founder of Enhancive; Justin Seeley Learning Evangelist, Adobe.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Adobe
Thu, July 17 - Exposing the Silence: Reporting on Deaths in Custody
What: A hands-on workshop on investigating deaths in custody — a largely underreported and deeply consequential issue. With limited federal oversight and minimal state enforcement of reporting requirements, many unnatural deaths in correctional facilities go unreported. This session will equip journalists with the tools and context needed to expose systemic failures that can have tragic consequences.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: The Marshall Project, Arizona Luminaria, Ocala Gazette, and Sunlight Research Center
Thu, July 17 - Counter-Narratives: Storytelling Is Power, with Laura Camacho
What: We’ll explore how counter-narratives can challenge harmful assumptions, reclaim voice, and build collective power.
Who: Laura Camacho, leadership coach.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: TechSoup
Thu, July 17 - Climate Is the Everything Story
What: This important virtual conversation will discuss SJN/CCN’s Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation, released last year, and cover best practices for supporting communities in effecting change and amplifying climate journalists’ work amid powerful opposition from governments and corporations.
Who: Angela K. Evans is the Director, Communities of Practice at the Solutions Journalism Network; Andrew McCormick is a journalist and writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and the Columbia Journalism Review; Breanna Draxler, who most recently was the deputy editor at YES! Magazine.
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Online News Association
Thu, July 17 - Teaching AI with Confidence
What: You’ll discover practical strategies, resources, and tools to help your teachers confidently teach AI literacy and model responsible AI use in the classroom.
Who: Julianne Robar, Former Educator, Current Senior Director of Metadata and Product Interoperability, Renaissance; Vanessa Gonzalez Cerullo, Vice President of Product, Renaissance; and Jennifer Ehehalt, Former Educator, Current Senior Regional Manager, Common Sense Education.
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Renaissance
Thu, July 17 – Bad Reviews: How to Write Them & Why We Need Them
What: Advice for emerging writers alongside experienced arts journalists who regularly work with national outlets who want to practice cultural critique and for artists and audiences who want to look inside the critic's process.
Who: Associate Broad Street Review editor Kyle V. Hiller; Critics Alix Rosenfeld, and Wendy Rosenfield.
When: 6:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free with a $25 suggested donation
Sponsor: Broad Street Review
Fri, July 18 - Ask Me Anything: AI Accountability Network Fellowships
What: Learn about joining the fourth (2025-2026) cohort of the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Fellowships.
Who: Joanna S. Kao, Pulitzer Center staff; Sofia Schurig AI Fellow.
When: 9 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Pulitzer Center
giving, pardoning, dying
/It is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life. -Francis of Assisi
18 Articles about Relationships with AI
/AI challenges and opportunities for relationship and family therapy examined in study – PhysOrg
‘It’s almost like we never even spoke’: AI is making everyone on dating apps sound charming – Washington Post
I Wrote a Novel About a Woman Building an AI Lover. Here’s What I Learned. – Wall Street Journal
Inside ‘AI Addiction’ Support Groups, Where People Try to Stop Talking to Chatbots – 404 Media
Man Proposed to His AI Chatbot Girlfriend Named Sol, Then Cried His 'Eyes Out' When She Said 'Yes' - People
They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling. – New York Times
People Are Becoming Obsessed with ChatGPT and Spiraling Into Severe Delusions – Futurism
People are using ChatGPT to write breakup texts and I fear for our future – Tech Radar
Love Is a Drug. A.I. Chatbots Are Exploiting That. - New York Times
People are asking ChatGPT for ‘harsh, honest’ beauty advice - The Washington Post
Teens are sexting with AI. Here’s what parents should know. - Washington Post
Can ChatGPT save your relationship? Inside the AI therapy trend winning over Gen Z, but alarming experts – Economic Times
My Couples Retreat With 3 AI Chatbots and the Humans Who Love Them – Wired
AI users form relationships with technology (video) – CBS News
How A.I. Made Me More Human, Not Less – New York Times
The Advantages of Love
/If we want the advantages of love, then we must be willing to take the risks of love. And that requires vulnerability. -Charles Swindoll
AI that can ID People Based on the Way They Walk
/A study published in May reported that an AI model called FarSight, using gait, body and face recognition, was 83 percent accurate in verifying an individual at up to 1,000 meters, and was 65 percent accurate even when the face was obscured -New York Times
For the Scholarly Elite or the Masses?
/In college and graduate school, I studied cognitive science, philosophy, and politics. I formed a conviction that I wanted to try to change the world for the better. Initially, my plan was to be an academic and public intellectual. At the time, I got bored easily (still do), which made me distractible and not great at making the trains run on time. Academia seemed like an environment that would keep me perpetually stimulated as I would think and write on the value of compassion, self-development, and the pursuit of wisdom. I would hopefully inspire others to implement these ideas to form a nobler society.
But graduate school, while stimulating, turned out to be grounded in a culture and incentive scheme that promoted hyperspecialization; I discovered that academics end up writing for a scholarly elite of typically about fifty people. It turned out there was not much support for academics who would attempt to spread ideas to the masses. So my aspiration to have a broad impact on potentially millions of people clashed with the market realities of academia.
I adopted my career orientation. My new aim was to try to promote the workings of a good society via entrepreneurship and technology.
Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, The Startup of You
AI's Impact on Middle-Tier Employees
/From a purely financial perspective, it would increasingly make sense for companies to hire junior employees who used A.I. to do what was once midlevel work, a handful of senior employees to oversee them and almost no middle-tier employees. -New York Times
19 Articles about AI & Coding
/How to Measure the ROI of AI Coding Assistants – The New Stack
AI now writes 25% of code in the US: Should Computer Science students rethink their career plans? - Times of India
Learn to code, they said: AI is already erasing some entry-level coding jobs – Mashable
What Google Translate Can Tell Us About Vibecoding – Ingrid’s Space
Coding agents have crossed a chasm // flurries of latent creativity – Singleton
Field Notes From Shipping Real Code With Claude - diwank's space
How to use ChatGPT to write code - and my top trick for debugging what it generates - ZDnet
How vibe coding is tipping Silicon Valley’s scales of power – Semafor
An AI Vibe Coding Guide for Data Scientists – KD Nuggets
My AI Coding Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts – Fly.io
"Learn to Code" Backfires Spectacularly as Comp-Sci Majors Suddenly Have Sky-High Unemployment - Futurism
A.I. Is Coming for the Coders Who Made It – New York Times
The Computer-Science Bubble Is Bursting: Artificial intelligence is ideally suited to replacing the very type of person who built it – The Atlantic
AI and State of Software Development – Hardik Pandya
Which Workers Will A.I. Hurt Most: The Young or the Experienced? – New York Times
The Best AI Coding Tools You Can Use Right Now – IEEE
AI Agents Are Getting Better at Writing Code—and Hacking It as Well – Wired
I’ve become an AI vibe coding convert – Fast Company
Google issues official internal guidance on using AI for coding - and its devs might not be best pleased – Tech Radar
An Example of Using AI in Journalism
/CalMatters is using AI to track all of the committee hearings in the California state legislature. Not only are they using AI to monitor things that they could never have enough people to do manually, but they’ve created a website where I, as a user, can go and search any topic I’m interested in, and AI will find the conversation that was had in the state legislature about that topic and pull those transcripts for me. It’s an impressive tool. -Poynter
How talkers and non-talkers can get along
/There are two kinds of people in the world: Talkers and non-talkers. While it might seem like common sense to match the two types together in marriage, that’s not necessarily a recipe for marital bliss. Many non-talkers are also non-listeners. And despite the growing number of ways to communicate, technology is becoming a substitute for engagement rather than a supplement. Ideally, we’d find someone who complements our style of communication. Here are a few tips from the experts:
Recognize the difference between silence and someone who is really listening. Active listening means being engaged with nonverbal cues and reflecting back what the speaker has said.
Be honest with one another and ask for a break when the non-talker runs low on gas. Be respectful and give it to him.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking brief summaries will do the trick. These bursts may not give enough time for an emotional connection.
Instead of numbing an emotionally-depleted spouse, find an attentive audience of friends who can provide what a talker needs.
19 Recent Articles about the Impact of AI on Students
/California colleges spend millions to catch plagiarism and AI. Is the faulty tech worth it? – Cal Matters
My students think it’s fine to cheat with AI. Maybe they’re onto something. – Vox
Panel with AI experts to review appeal of NTU student penalised for academic misconduct - The Straits Times
How AI Is Helping Students Find the Right College – Wired
Chinese AI firms block features amid high-stakes university entrance exams – Washington Post
6 College Majors That Will Thrive In An AI-Driven Economy – Forbes
For Some Recent Graduates, the A.I. Job Apocalypse May Already Be Here – New York Times
AI cheating surge pushes schools into chaos – Axios
Here are some guiding ideas to keep in mind as you navigate college in the era of artificial intelligence – Student Guide to AU
A New Headache for Honest Students: Proving They Didn’t Use A.I. – New York Times
What My Students Had To Say About AI – The Broken Copier
Using ChatGPT, students might pass a course, but with a cost – PhysOrg
How Are Students Using AI? – AI and How We Teach
Students Are Humanizing Their Writing—By Putting It Through AI – Wall Street Journal
Why misuse of generative AI is worse than plagiarism – Springer
Students, early career workers use ChatGPT as a mentor - Axios
How Students Use and Think About Their Use of AI – Daily Nous
How AI Helps Our Students Deepen Their Writing (Yes, Really) – EdWeek
As if graduating weren’t daunting enough, now students like me face a jobs market devastated by AI – The Guardian
AI's Impact on Motivation
/Despite the performance benefits, study participants who collaborated with gen AI on one task and then transitioned to a different, unaided task consistently reported a decline in intrinsic motivation and an increase in boredom. Across our studies, intrinsic motivation dropped by an average of 11% and boredom increased by an average of 20%. In contrast, those who worked without AI maintained a relatively steady psychological state. -Harvard Business Review
Expand Your World
/If you don't keep expanding your world it will naturally shrivel. –Stephen Goforth
18 Articles about AI & the Creative Arts
/Responsible by Design – Why AI Must Be Human-First – Unite.AI
An Illustrator Confronts his fears about AI Art – New York Times
The Grammys Chief on How AI Will Change Music – Wall Street Journal
Approaching AI as a design leader: rethinking the customer journey with a layer of AI-first - Jehad Affoneh
AI, Search and the Future of News Once again, distinctiveness is the best defense - Richard J. Tofel
Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud – Associated Press
‘M3gan 2.0’ Review: Everyone’s favorite campy killer doll returns in a movie that has some thoughts about AI - Wall Street Journal
Madison Avenue Braces for the AI Apocalypse – Hollywood Reporter
What Hollywood wants from the AI industry – Washington Post
Music Producer Timbaland Introduces New AI Artist – Rolling Stone
Australian authors say no to AI using their work – even if money is on the table – The Conversation
AI learns how vision and sound are connected, without human intervention – MIT
How political cartoonists are bringing AI into their work – Harvard’s Neiman Lab
There should be no AI button - Kojo Osei
Fortnite’s Darth Vader Is A.I.-Powered. Voice Actors Are Rebelling. - New York Times
Why AI Interviews Could Be Bad News For Honest Designers - Andy Budd
‘Nobody wants a robot to read them a story!’ The creatives and academics rejecting AI – at work and at home – The Guardian
I write novels and build AI. The real story is more complicated than either side admits – Fast Company
An AI Vision for College—Tools for Every Facet of Campus Life
/OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has a plan to overhaul college education — by embedding its artificial intelligence tools in every facet of campus life. If the company’s strategy succeeds, universities would give students A.I. assistants to help guide and tutor them from orientation day through graduation. Professors would provide customized A.I. study bots for each class. Career services would offer recruiter chatbots for students to practice job interviews. And undergrads could turn on a chatbot’s voice mode to be quizzed aloud ahead of a test. ChatGPT Edu also enables faculty and staff to create custom chatbots for university use. -New York Times
5 Internal Contributions to Anger
/1-Self-esteem
People who try to be self-sufficient are easily frustrated and angered when they see evidence of their dependence on others. They get angry at themselves for needing others and they get angry at other people for “keeping” them in this weakness.
2-Desire for Power in Relationships
Some people feel threatened by the need to give up power in love relationships. For instance, a batterer may use anger to intimidate others in a quest for power. It’s a way to caution the abused person against using their own power. To avoid rousing their anger, spouses end up tiptoeing around the other to avoid confrontation because the price is too high to pay.
3-Desire to be Perfect
Unrealistic standards must be met for the person to feel worthwhile and accepted.
Whenever there is a perceived loss of perfection, the person becomes depressed (angry with themselves) for small failures. The student who gets a B-plus instead of an A, etc. These people also set up high standards for others to achieve and are quickly judgmental. They are hurt by others who do not join them in the quest for perfection. Even though they may be chronic confessors, but growth comes slow because they don’t want to accept their limitations.
4-Guilt
Unresolved guilt can lead to irritability. People have trouble admitting their faults.
5-Rejection
Rejection leaves people feeling hurt and worthless. When significant others disdain our contributions or act as if we are inferior and unimportant we bolster self-esteem by rejecting others ourselves, using the weapons of anger and hostility. Since it does not heal the relationship or self-esteem, it is a temporary fix.