Confession: as much as I adore a night full of loud laughter and massive mugs full of booze, I have never partaken in the annual festivities of Oktoberfest.

Even though I’ve routinely walked past a block full of bars emanating loud cheers from early September through late October, I’ve never participated in the festival fun. For 2026, I’ve made it my mission to make that happen. As a New York City resident who knows there will be plenty of events built around all the Oktoberfest fun, I set out to build a bucket list of worthwhile activities to do this month and into the next.

Since ChatGPT and Google Gemini have done a great job helping me plan my future weekend plans and domestic & international travels, I knew both chatbots would do an equally amazing job of telling me where to go in my city to celebrate Oktoberfest.

My favorite AI event planners impressed me once again by mentioning five Oktoberfest celebrations that are definitely worth experiencing.

The five citywide Oktoberfest events AI made me aware of

Simply prompting ChatGPT and Gemini with “This year, I want to celebrate Oktoberfest in New York. Give me a list of planned activities and locations that I should participate in to have the most fun” resulted in both chatbots giving me the best event suggestions and ways to fully enjoy them. These are the combined total of their efforts and the five events that I can’t wait to haul my equally excited friends to:

• German-American Steuben Parade Fest (Sep 19) in Central Park (Rumsey Playfield): The official citywide kickoff event right after the Fifth Avenue parade. Giant outdoor beer garden in the heart of the park.
• Start at Oktoberfest NYC at Pier 15: This is the easiest place to get your Oktoberfest fix because it's running seven days a week for nearly two months. The official event promises German beer, giant pretzels, brats, live entertainment, games, and views of the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges. General admission is free, although there are paid VIP/open-bar options. Why go: This is your best casual, flexible Oktoberfest base camp.
• Make Zum Schneider's "Munich on the East River" your BIG Oktoberfest night: This would be my #1 event for you. Zum Schneider is specifically recreating the Munich beer-tent experience, with communal tables, one-liter Maßkrüge, Bavarian food, live music, and a rooftop biergarten overlooking the East River. The 2026 event runs Sept. 25–Oct. 4. The event even has rooftop biergarten seating with Manhattan skyline views. My recommendation: Go on a Saturday late session, 5:15–10 p.m., and get reserved seating if you're going with friends. Saturdays are split into early and late sessions.
• Do the Stone Street Oktoberfest: This is the experience I'd choose if you want something that feels like NYC itself has turned into a German street festival. The historic cobblestone street becomes the setting for German food, beer, live music, games, and stein-holding competitions. Current 2026 guides list multiple Saturday celebrations during September and October. Bonus: Because admission is generally free, this is an easy one to add without making your Oktoberfest budget explode.
• Radegast Hall & Biergarten (Saturdays, Sep 20 – Oct 4) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn: Classic indoor Bavarian hall featuring live oompah bands, mug-holding matches, and sausage grills.

What I also appreciated about Gemini’s Oktoberfest proposals was the themed activities and additional planning pro tips. Catching a ceremonial keg tapping at either Zum Schneider or Radegast Hall piqued my interest. Plus, Google’s chatbot laid out several authentic German beers that I should add to my “must-drink” list—its top picks included Hofbräu, Paulaner, Weihenstephaner and Schneider Weisse. Also, these are the two pre-planning tips I made sure to keep in mind:

• Reserve Seats Early: Ticketed venues like Zum Schneider sell out quickly for Saturday late sessions. Reserve tables or VIP passes ahead of time if traveling with a group.
• Timing: For a high-energy party, target Saturday afternoons and evenings. For a family- or dog-friendly atmosphere with fewer crowds, go early on Sunday afternoons.

The takeaway

ChatGPT and Gemini scoured my city for premier Oktoberfest events, their locations and whatever traditional booze & food is being served there to make sure I’d stay busy for the next couple of celebratory weekends.

Alongside both chatbots’ well-laid plans that made it onto my festival bucket list, I did plenty of my own research to find the menus of the listed restaurants and all the important details attached to all the assorted celebrations.

Now I know I’ll have a much easier time setting up my future Oktoberfest NYC crawls from here on out, thanks to ChatGPT and Gemini.

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I'll admit, I stopped using Siri around 2010. I didn't think it was very helpful for more than setting a timer and I often had to repeat myself, which seemed to make using it frustrating at times.

But Siri AI in iOS 27 is something very different and has made me a believer again. The difference is the "AI" in Siri AI. Apple has turned Siri into a conversational AI assistant, much like ChatGPT Voice, that can answer questions and understand what's on your screen and, perhaps most importantly, tap into information already sitting on your iPhone.

In the same way Personal Intelligence can navigate through Google Workspace, Siri AI does that right on your phone. And that's the thing about this update that caught my attention.

So I decided to try something I wouldn't have considered doing with the old Siri: I stopped using ChatGPT for a day and asked Siri AI to handle as many of my usual AI tasks as possible.

I expected ChatGPT to run circles around it. That wasn't always what happened. Here are five things that changed how I use it.

1. Finding something I barely remember

I save everything. I have about 70,657 photos on my iPhone as proof that I'm a digital hoarder. But one of the most frustrating things about having years of messages, emails and photos on my phone is knowing something is there but having absolutely no idea where to look for it. I can't tell you how many times I think "I know I took a screenshot of that phone number sometime in July..."

Normally, I'd start opening apps and searching individually. Siri's personal context makes a completely different approach possible.

Instead, I can ask something vague like, "What was the name of the restaurant Steve sent me?" or "When is that appointment I got an email about?"

That's a deceptively big change. Traditional Siri worked best when you knew exactly what you wanted and phrased the command correctly. The new Siri is much better suited to those moments when you don't know exactly what you're looking for. That's honestly one of the main reasons I need an assistant at all.

2. Doing something with what's already on my screen

If I'm looking at something on my iPhone, I don't necessarily have to explain what "this" is before asking Siri about it.

For example, if someone sends me information I need later, I can bring up Siri and say, "Remind me about this tomorrow."

Or I can ask Siri about something I'm looking at and then continue from there. With a traditional chatbot, there's often an extra step involved. I might need to upload a screenshot, copy some text or explain what I'm looking at before asking my question.

Siri is already there. It's one of those advantages that has less to do with having a smarter model and more to do with where the AI actually lives.

3. Handling a messy, normal-life request

AI benchmarks are great for comparing models, but my actual life leads to questions that are more like, "I need to make dinner before soccer at 6. I have chicken in the fridge, I don't want anything complicated and it needs to take less than 25 minutes."

That's the kind of request I've traditionally taken straight to ChatGPT. So I started giving similar requests to Siri. And, what I noticed about Siri AI is that it finally keeps the conversation going. It's a lot like ChatGPT voice

What's different from the Siri of a few years ago is that I can continue the conversation without starting over every time.

I can ask for dinner ideas, reject the first suggestion, add another constraint and keep going.

"Nothing spicy."

"What if I don't have rice?"

"Give me the easiest one."

That conversational back-and-forth is something we've taken for granted with ChatGPT and Gemini Live, but it fundamentally changes what Siri feels like to use.

4. Doing the things ChatGPT can't

My opinion started to really change about Siri AI when I tested it to do things that ChatGPT cannot do. If I ask ChatGPT and Siri the same difficult question, I'd still expect ChatGPT to have an advantage in plenty of situations.

But that's not necessarily the comparison here. Siri can interact with the device I'm holding. That means that Siri is doing so much more than answering questions — it actually takes action. I can ask about information on my phone and then do something with it. I can move between finding information and acting on that information without treating the AI as a separate destination.

Chatbots have become remarkably good at telling us how to do things. The next step is having an assistant that can actually help carry them out. And because Siri sits at the operating-system level, Apple has an enormous advantage here.

5. Knowing when I'd still choose ChatGPT

To be clear, Siri hasn't suddenly made ChatGPT irrelevant on my iPhone. I still prefer to brainstorm and fact-check with ChatGPT, or even work through a complicated idea. I just think ChatGPT-6 is a simply better AI, but after diving into Siri AI, I've found myself using the two differently.

ChatGPT is where I go when I want to think with AI. Siri is now where I go when I want AI to help me do something on my phone.

The line between those two things will probably get blurrier as both assistants evolve, but right now it's a surprisingly useful distinction. I'm just glad to know that Siri finally has a reason to exist.

Bottom line

Siri AI in iOS 27 has made me a believer in Siri again. It finally understands what I need and what I'm looking at without me needing to repeat myself. And, the information is actually useful and already on the device I'm using, which can turn a conversation into an action faster than using ChatGPT.

There are still plenty of situations where I'd choose ChatGPT first, particularly when I need deeper reasoning or I'm working on something complicated.

But when I'm holding my iPhone and simply trying to get something done, I'm starting to reach for Siri more often.

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Over the past few years I have spent an inordinate amount of my time sitting in virtual queues, waiting for my chance to buy something. Recently my phone was sitting in one for around four hours as I attempted to book a family trip to Disneyland Paris. Since it was the day bookings opened, it seems as though half of Europe was doing the same thing.

Waiting is bad enough, but it was made worse by the fact I got distracted partway through waiting and missed my window. That means starting the whole process again, and mentally kicking myself for letting myself get distracted attempting to troubleshoot my temperamental 3D printer. This is far from an isolated case for me, either.

So you can imagine my excitement when I found out about the new "Notify Me" feature in iOS 27, with the promise that it can monitor webpages and alert you to any changes. Unfortunately spending time with Notify Me shows that Apple hasn't really gone far enough.

What Notify Me is, and how it works

Notify Me is an artificial intelligence feature for Apple's Safari browser. The idea is that you can single out a webpage and have Apple's AI tell you when things change. That can be general changes, or it could be something specific that you describe with a written prompt.

The main thing to remember about Notify Me is that the AI doesn't monitor that page all the time. Instead you have to tell it when it should come back and see what's changed. Your options are to do this hourly, daily, weekly or monthly. You also get to set the exact time, day or date (depending on the frequency) that the AI goes back to check.

It's a very simple feature that can be accessed from the Safari menu bar which sits on the left-hand side of the URL bar — which is typically at the bottom of the screen on iPhone and iPad. It's easy to find and use, which is more than I can say for a lot of features in iOS 27.

From a practical stand point, Notify Me has everything going for it. Apart from the fact its usefulness is currently rather limited.

Hourly checks aren't enough to be truly useful

I'm not saying that Notify Me is useless in its current form, quite the opposite in fact. The tool is ideal for keeping tabs on certain pages in the long-term. Use cases include keeping tabs on restocks, or checking for discounts on specific products. The pages that you would only look at periodically, checking in very briefly before going back to whatever you would normally be doing.

Notify Me saves you the effort of remembering to do this yourself, especially if you want to check on some sort of schedule. You don't need to take time out of your day to look, when you have an AI that has been instructed to take care of that for you.

But in the short term? Notify Me's scope is still a little too limited for my liking.

Typically getting to the front of a virtual queue means you get some kind of grace period to complete whatever transaction you're doing. In the case of my trip it was 20 minutes, but I've seen them vary anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour. Obviously, having a tool that refreshes a page once an hour at most is not ideal for dealing with these kinds of situations. By the time the AI checks the page, it'll already be too late and you'll have missed your spot.

Really it would be better if Apple expanded Notify Me for much smaller periods of time. Five to ten minutes would expand its usefulness by a lot, since it would be as close to real-time monitoring as we can hope for with a free AI tool. But even increasing page refreshes to 30 or 15 minutes would make it a more useful and versatile tool.

Bottom line

Notify Me is definitely a useful tool, but its scope is too limited right now. The fact that you can instruct AI to check webpages for any kind of change you can describe is pretty incredible. But it's very much a long-term tool, that a lot of people probably won't get much use out of. It certainly has the potential to offer a lot more, though.

The question is whether Apple can actually do that. AI needs a lot of resources to run, and the more you utilize it the more pressure it's going to put on your hardware. In fact, we don't know where this processing is done or how it affects your phone, so there's no telling what sort of stress checking a page multiple times an hour might inflict. Even if Apple has just released the fastest phones we've ever tested.

But I hope that this is just the start of what Apple has planned, and that Notify Me will be getting an expansion in future versions of iOS and Apple Intelligence. After all, the less we all have to sit in virtual queues to try and get tickets to the next big concert or event, the better.

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We have all received an email or text that feels unnervingly synthetic — polished, grammatically flawless and devoid of human warmth. But there is a distinct irony when the CEO of Snap, one of the world’s largest communication platforms, admits that AI-generated messages from his own wife, Miranda Kerr, drive him “a little crazy.”

It was one of those small moments of raw honesty during the course of a wide-ranging discussion with Snap CEO Evan Spiegel about the plans for Snap Specs. And specifically, to not risk inducing “AI brain fry” — a state where users passively outsource their own critical thinking, active listening and social presence to an algorithm whispering in their ear.

The problem of AI Brain Fry

Silicon Valley’s dominant vision for AI over the past two years has been aggressively generative. Tech giants have raced to build chatbots that write your emails, draft your replies, summarize your friends’ life updates and synthesize artificial personalities.

And after the past couple of years testing some of the best smart glasses, I must admit that, even though I’m ready for the generative AI bubble to burst, I’ve ironically had a few situations of bypassing key skills.

For example, I told Spiegel about my late-night phone call with my wife in New York — using the Even Realities G2's Conversate function to replace my need for active listening at 2am.

It presented an existential question that I had to take the chance to ask Evan on the precipice of launching this leapfrog product: Am I in a relationship with my wife, or are my glasses? With Specs Intelligence becoming an all-in-one proactive AI service for Specs, where is that line between them being genuinely useful and replacing critical skills that make us human.

“I don't think there's one right answer. I think it's really going to depend on what makes sense in each person's relationship,” Spiegel said.

“For me, for example, it drives me a little crazy when my wife sends me like AI-written text messages. But she's like, 'You know, honey, it's really helpful for me to gather my thoughts and think through it, helps me communicate ideas more clearly, and something that I really like as a useful tool.' Personally, for me, I like to write my own messages.”

That small marital friction captures the profound philosophical divide that I’ve been trying to wrap my head around. When communication becomes synthetic, it could rob human relationships of the very friction, vulnerability and effort that give them meaning.

What’s the counter attack?

The collateral damage of AI brain fry has been a slow degradation of active listening and independent thought. I’ve seen it in some friends, and especially in the folks who actively have to @ mention Grok to dictate their opinions — if an algorithm acts for you, your brain is no longer engaged; it is merely an output conduit for a language model.

Spiegel’s counter-thesis for Snap Specs is that glasses should be an antidote to digital complacency, and not its ultimate vehicle.

“There is a really valuable change from AI being something you use as a chatbot where you're constantly asking for stuff all the time, to AI being something that really understands who you are, what your priorities are, and then can offer suggestions,” Spiegel explained.

“You don't have to accept them, you certainly don't need to act on them, but I think that for us is an opportunity to make AI something that helps you spend more time in the moment, instead of again, taking your attention into a chatbot interface.”

This philosophy forms the foundation of Specs Intelligence — the cross-platform context engine connecting iPhone, Mac and Specs. Rather than function as a chatty conversational companion, it’s engineered as an ambient logistical filter — organizing life into what Snap calls “Corners” (work, family, health) and tracks overarching “Goals.”

These interventions are supposed to be operational, not emotional, and eliminate administrative noise so your mind remains free to focus on the human beings in front of you. Of course, I’m keen to test it for myself to see whether it finds this right balance Spiegel mentions.

Analog skills in a digital world

The most compelling evidence of Spiegel’s resistance to cognitive outsourcing lies in how Snap curated the launch software for Specs.

Where rival headsets like the Apple Vision Pro lean heavily into virtual multi-window workstations and synthetic escapism, Specs’ flagship AR experiences are rooted in analog, real-world competencies:

• Kaia Gerber’s Library Science Lens does not summarize a novel with an LLM; it is calibrated to track and enhance the experience of reading a physical, paper book, allowing readers to pin definitions and annotate passages without losing their place on the physical page.
• Interactive NBA and WNBA Training Lenses do not let you play a video game; they use computer vision to track a physical basketball, projecting shooting arcs and dribbling drills onto a real-world court.
• Jimmy Butler’s Dominoes Lens turns any flat surface into a multiplayer table, forcing wearers to sit across from friends in the same physical room and read their body language.

“For me, that's something that's so important to the real vision of Specs,” Spiegel emphasized.

“Specs can help you become more creative, help you develop skills, rather than being something that outsources your creativity to a computer. And I think that's really where the difference is. And that's why so much of what we do is oriented around helping you build skills in the real world, right? Whether that's learning to play basketball or learning how to draw. These are all things that you're doing, not something that the computer's doing.”

One clear standout lens is the one created for Imogen Heap to create music live. As a musician myself, this looked so cool, and I can imagine how freeing it feels to get creative in an open space like this.

For Spiegel, spatial computing is only defensible if it preserves human agency. A computer that practices free throws for you or reads a book on your behalf is a net negative; a device that trains your eye to shoot better or encourages you to sit down with a paperback is an enhancement of human capability.

The danger of the transparent screen

Spiegel’s distinction between assertive logistics and replacing key human thinking is a sharp one. But whether that line holds up in the messy reality of consumer adoption remains an open question. I struggled with it for a hot minute there — and Evan’s figuring it out.

The big paradox of smart glasses is that by putting a display directly between your pupils and the real world, the potential for distraction is way higher than it ever was on a smartphone.

An Apple Watch telling you to stand up every hour is a minor bugbear. But having an ambient AI flashing reminders, suggestions and real-time social telemetry across your retinas during a private chat risks destroying human connection entirely.

If an ambient system misjudges its proactivity by even a fraction, it doesn’t keep you “in the moment,” it turns real-world interactions into a surreal heads-up display where you’re half-listening to a companion and half-scanning your digital surroundings.

Yet, in my time sitting across from Spiegel, his core conviction feels authentic. In an era where most execs view human relationships as data pools to be automated by chatbots, Spiegel’s own personal red lines are clear.

Tech can map our world, streamline our schedules and track our physical progress. But the moment it begins telling us what to say to the people we love, we aren’t using a tool anymore — we are letting the machine live our lives for us.

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The Pixel Watch 5 comes in several configurations, including the special edition Stephen Curry model with an upgraded woven sports strap and a custom watch face.

As of publication, Google only offers the Steph Curry edition in a 45mm case size with LTE connectivity. It costs $50 more than the standard Google Pixel Watch 5 45mm LTE model. Sure, you can call me crazy, but I think the higher price is totally worth it.

Of course, this isn’t Google’s first collab with the basketball superstar. The brand also debuted a special edition Fitbit Air Steph Curry model for an extra $30 with a similar-style upgraded sports loop designed with athletes in mind.

When I reviewed the Fitbit Air, the Steph Curry strap quickly proved to be my favorite of the three Air straps I tested. And the same things that made me fall in love with that strap also apply to the Pixel Watch 5 Steph Curry loop.

With that in mind, here are the three biggest reasons I prefer the Pixel Watch 5 Stephen Curry edition to the standard Pixel Watch 5.

1. Quicker to dry and better breathability

First, a quick clarification: Aside from the special watch face, there are no hardware or software differences between the Google Pixel Watch 5 and the Pixel Watch 5 Steph Curry edition. The cases are identical, as are the under-the-hood components.

What truly sets the two smartwatches apart is the quality of the included strap. The Steph Curry loop is made from a soft, flexible, sweat-wicking woven polyester-elastane mix. Unlike the silicone strap that comes with most of the standard Pixel Watch 5 options, the Steph Curry strap is actually comfortable to sweat in.

Not only is the woven material highly breathable, but the strap is also treated with a waterproof coating to further add to the sweat-wicking capabilities.

2. Infinitely adjustable and all-around comfier

Another key reason I prefer the Steph Curry Pixel Watch 5 over the standard version is how the straps attach to your wrist. Google’s standard silicone strap uses a variant of the traditional pin-and-buckle style strap, which relegates you to choosing one of nine tightness options.

The Steph Curry loop, on the other hand, is secured in place via Velcro, giving users a near-infinite degree of adjustability. The underside of the upgraded strap also features raised silicone “ribs” that run parallel along its length.

These help keep the Pixel Watch 5 from moving around on your wrist, even during intense workouts and/or when sweating profusely.

3. It looks cool on the wrist

Last but not least, I prefer the Pixel Watch 5 Steph Curry special edition to the standard model because the strap simply looks a lot snazzier IMHO. I’m a big fan of the black, orange, and rye woven pattern (though a black, green, and rye would be my ultimate choice).

While this may sound superficial, at the end of the day, there’s no benefit in an unworn wearable, even if you own one of the best smartwatches of 2026 (like the Pixel Watch 5). This is to say, an aesthetically pleasing strap, in some ways, is just as important as reliable fitness tracking tech.

What are your thoughts on the Pixel Watch 5 Stephen Curry model? Do you think it’s worth the extra $50? Let me know in the comments below.

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It’s become readily apparent that teenagers are getting a little close to the AI assistant that they sometimes regard as a therapeutic companion.

A 2026 study conducted by researchers from the University of Ottawa observed nearly 40,000 students from grades four through 12 in Ontario—their results found that roughly one in five AI chatbots that were used by that collection of kids for emotional support/advice. The same kids that relied on AI for that purpose were found to be twice as likely to have clinical emotional issues as those who didn’t

And while speaking to EdSource, an American high school senior named Vihaan Bhardwaj noted that turning to AI chatbots for emotional support/advice wasn’t all that beneficial for him. “It backfired,” Bhardwaj said, “because I feel like I didn’t get to process that emotion fully … You feel this incompleteness, and the emotions still linger.” With New York City public schools enacting a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI for grades 2-K through 8 and reports of NYC council members calling for more constraints on tech in schools, it’s clear that adults are looking to reduce teens’ access to AI.

I spoke to teen psychologist and co-founder of ROWI Teen & Parent Wellness Centers, Dr. Candice Feinberg, who provided some interesting insights on everything from the biggest warning signs that a teen is relying too much on AI for emotional guidance to the best rules parents should set for their teens’ use of technology.

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I use ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini constantly and, and one of the most frustrating things about switching between AI chatbots is that each one essentially becomes its own island.

I can spend hours working through a project in ChatGPT, giving it background information and explaining exactly how I want something done. Then I might decide Claude is better suited to the next part of the job, only to realize I'm starting over. Or, vice versa, I start with Claude, hit my usage limit and have to switch to a new AI assistant.

And sure, can copy and paste parts of the original conversation into Claude, but that gets messy fast when I'm dealing with a thread that stretches back dozens of messages.

That's why SkillSync caught my attention. The tool is designed to let you move ChatGPT conversations to Claude, or Claude conversations back to ChatGPT, rather than abandoning all that context when you switch AI assistants. And while there have been prompt workarounds, SkillSync does much more.

Using this tool is particularly for someone like me who jumps between AI models throughout the day. But transferring a ChatGPT conversation is one thing. I wanted to know whether I could actually continue it in Claude.

So I took one of my real ChatGPT conversations, moved it over to Claude and tried to pick up exactly where I'd left off.

How I transferred a ChatGPT conversation to Claude

To see if this would really work, I chose a ChatGPT conversation with about 20 messages that included a detailed project brief, specific instructions about tone and several formatting rules we'd established along the way.

After moving the ChatGPT conversation into Claude with SkillSync, I didn't explain where it came from or give Claude a summary of what we'd been discussing. I simply asked it to draft the next section based on the structure we'd already established. To my total surprise, it actually worked.

Claude picked up instructions from earlier in the ChatGPT conversation and continued without asking me to explain anything again. More importantly, it felt like a continuation of the same conversation rather than a new chatbot trying to reconstruct one from a handful of copied messages.

The formatting survived, too. Markdown headers, lists and code blocks came across intact, which becomes particularly useful with longer ChatGPT conversations where copying and pasting everything manually can quickly turn into a mess.

There is one important limitation. Attachments don't make the trip in the same way. This was a real bummer for me because I'm always uploading drafts of my manuscripts and research. So, if your original ChatGPT conversation contains uploaded PDFs or images that the chatbot needs to reference, you'll still have to upload those files again in Claude. SkillSync can bring the conversation over, but it can't recreate the files that went with it. Honestly, a huge disappointment, but everything else worked well.

I also tried going in the opposite direction by transferring a Claude conversation to ChatGPT. Again, the text and context came across well enough that I could continue the conversation without starting over.

What is SkillSync?

SkillSync is a local-first tool designed to make your AI conversations portable instead of leaving them locked inside one platform.

AI tools store conversations in different formats, which makes switching between them difficult even when you want to continue working on exactly the same thing. SkillSync converts those sessions so they can be picked up in another supported AI tool without having to rebuild the context manually.

It currently works with a long list of AI tools, including ChatGPT, Claude Chat, Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. You can search previous sessions, reopen them in their original tool or create a copy that can be continued with another supported agent.

The technology behind that conversion is an open-source project called txcript, which handles the different session formats. SkillSync says the process is local by default, meaning local sessions remain on your computer unless you explicitly choose to sync them to its service.

That last part caught my attention because moving an entire AI conversation can involve considerably more information than copying a few prompts. You're potentially moving the context you've built up over dozens of messages, which is exactly what I wanted to put to the test.

How to try SkillSync

SkillSync is easiest to try on a Mac, where the company offers a graphical desktop app. Windows and Linux users aren't completely left out, but they'll need to use SkillSync's command-line tool instead. Head to the SkillSync website and download the Mac app or, if you're comfortable, there's also a command-line version for macOS, Linux and Windows if you're comfortable working in a terminal.

Once SkillSync is installed, it can find conversations from supported AI tools on your computer, including ChatGPT and Claude Chat, along with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and several other AI coding tools.

From there, you can browse your available sessions and choose one to continue. If you want to move a conversation to another supported AI tool, SkillSync creates a new version of the session in the destination's format while leaving your original conversation untouched.

You don't need a SkillSync account just to work with local sessions, and the company says those sessions stay on your device unless you explicitly choose to sync one to its service.

If you're trying it for the first time, I'd start with a conversation that doesn't contain sensitive information and move it between two AI tools you already use. Then ask the destination chatbot something that relies on information from much earlier in the conversation. That's a quick way to see whether you've actually brought the useful context with you rather than simply moving a transcript.

Is it safe to transfer ChatGPT conversations to Claude?

There is an obvious issue with moving entire AI conversations between services: those conversations can contain a lot of information you probably don't want floating around.

Think about how much you've told ChatGPT over the past year. Depending on how you use it, that could include work information, personal details, documents, code or other material you wouldn't casually hand to another company.

Before transferring anything sensitive, I'd check if you are personally satisfied with how SkillSync processes conversations.

I'd be particularly cautious with confidential work material. Until you're comfortable with how your data is being handled, starting with conversations that don't contain sensitive information makes much more sense.

Final thoughts

ChatGPT and Claude should already let us do this. Why isn't this a regular feature? That was my first thought after giving this a try. Until ChatGPT, Claude and other AI platforms make it easier to transfer conversations between them, tools like SkillSync offer a useful workaround.

And after being able to open Claude and simply continue a conversation I started in ChatGPT, going back to explaining everything from scratch feels even more annoying than it did before.s that I shouldn't need it.

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If you've been following AI news over the past week, you may have noticed that some of the people racing to build the world's most powerful AI models are suddenly urging the race to slow down.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says frontier AI development needs to be paced and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agrees. Elon Musk has backed the idea, as has Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis.

And those warnings are pretty severe. Amodei wrote that AI is advancing "drastically faster" and pointed specifically to models' growing ability to help build the next generation of AI. His proposal includes giving independent evaluators deeper access to frontier labs, coordination between AI companies and international agreements around AI safety.

Then Michael Burry entered the conversation. The investor made famous by "The Big Short" has a very different explanation for the AI industry's sudden desire to hit the brakes. He argues that the warnings aren't simply about keeping humanity safe. He thinks they're also good for business.

Burry thinks the AI apocalypse is good marketing

Burry called the push to slow AI development "self-serving," arguing that OpenAI and Anthropic have strong financial reasons to portray their technology as extraordinarily powerful while also limiting how quickly competitors can catch them.

In the AI race, it's easy to overlook that big tech like OpenAI and Anthropic are so much more than research labs, they're companies competing in one of the fastest-moving technology markets we've ever seen; and the compeition is only escalating globally.

Burry argues that advances from Chinese and open-source AI developers are eroding some of the advantage enjoyed by the biggest American AI companies. Slowing frontier development, in his view, could therefore protect established players while making it harder for challengers to close the gap.

But there's another part of his argument that caught my attention. Because if you tell the world that the technology you've created is powerful enough to potentially threaten humanity, you're also telling the world that you've created an incredibly powerful technology. That's a pretty compelling message for a company eventually hoping to convince investors of its value.

The IPO timing makes this particularly interesting

Burry's argument would be easy to dismiss as another AI bubble warning if not for what's happening at OpenAI right now. Altman recently said OpenAI won't go public in 2026, as reported by Reuters, that the current focus on safety makes this an "ill-advised moment" for an IPO.

"We got a lot of stuff to do," Altman said, adding that OpenAI can deal with the current safety and alignment questions more easily while remaining a private company.

Burry sees something else in that decision by arguing that slowing development and delaying an IPO gives companies more time while simultaneously strengthening the narrative that their technology is becoming so powerful that extraordinary precautions are required.

That's an allegation rather than an established explanation for OpenAI's or Anthropic's behavior, and neither company's warnings about AI risk began this week. Anthropic in particular has spent years talking publicly about catastrophic AI risks and pushing for safety regulation.

But Burry isn't the only person questioning whether the proposed slowdown could benefit the companies calling for it.

Critics from across the political spectrum have raised concerns that an industry-led agreement could protect incumbent AI companies from competition or allow them to shape the rules governing their own technology. Former Federal Trade Commission official Alvaro Bedoya, for example, has argued that antitrust law shouldn't be used to let large AI companies coordinate in ways that keep cheaper competitors out of the market.

That doesn't mean the safety concerns aren't real

There are reasons AI researchers are legitamentally worried. I mean, this current debate didn't appear out of nowhere. It intensified after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and warned that leading AI companies were "gambling with our lives." Amodei subsequently pointed to recent security incidents and the rapidly improving ability of AI systems to contribute to AI development itself as reasons the industry needs to become more cautious.

There have also been concrete examples of models demonstrating capable behavior in cybersecurity and other potentially dangerous areas. Yet, Altman has said that pacing development shouldn't mean stopping it.

And this is where Burry's argument becomes more complicated.

There's an uncomfortable contradiction here

AI companies could genuinely believe their technology poses serious risks while also benefiting financially from telling the world how powerful that technology has become. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

For consumers, the strange part is the position we're being asked to accept. The companies developing AI want us to trust them enough to put their models on our phones, computers and eventually inside agents capable of performing tasks on our behalf.

At the same time, some of those companies are telling us their models could eventually become powerful enough that the entire industry needs to deliberately slow down.

The debate isn't even settled inside Silicon Valley.

While Altman, Amodei, Musk and Hassabis have expressed support for pacing AI development, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang have pushed back against a coordinated slowdown. There are also enormous practical problems with getting competing companies — let alone competing countries — to slow down at the same time.

The U.S. government continues to view AI leadership partly through the lens of competition with China, while AI companies face enormous pressure from investors and customers to release better models. Even executives who agree that slowing down is necessary haven't yet solved the problem of how to do it without allowing somebody else to race ahead.

So should you believe the AI apocalypse warnings?

There isn't currently a reliable way to put a date on an AI catastrophe, and claims that AI will wipe out humanity within a particular number of years remain predictions rather than established facts. At the same time, dismissing every warning as marketing would go too far in the other direction.

What Burry's argument does is add another question worth asking whenever an AI company tells us how dangerous its technology could become. What does the company gain from us believing it?

When a company tells the world that its technology could become powerful enough to change civilization — or even threaten it — it's hard to know if it's a warning or a heck of a sales pitch.

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The one thing most folks know about me is that I’m quick to dig into my bag of movies I’ve watched, musical artists I’ve grown quite fond of, restaurants I’ve eaten at frequently, etc., to give them recommendations.

And most of the time, they end up liking my picks (I’ve gotten word that suggesting they listen to Clown Core’s mind-bending instrumental music wasn’t exactly their vibe, however). I’m just as open to getting endorsements of their favorite things as well and am always on the lookout for suggestions from streaming services, websites and respected curators.

Speaking of respected curators, ChatGPT has emerged as my go-to chatbot whenever I need it to steer me in the right direction for some quality selections. It doesn’t matter if it's movies, music, games or whatever else I’m currently addicted to — once I start prompting, listing my favorites and jotting down my least favorites from whatever category I’m looking up, ChatGPT matches them with good to great recommendations.

Use these same prompts and ChatGPT may just expand your palette for all things media too.

Pushing me towards previously unknown media and so much more

These are the seven ChatGPT-generated prompts that I’ve put into practice for the longest time now when I’m in the mood to discover something new to read, play, listen to and watch:

• Musical Artists: Analyze my favorite artists, albums, and songs below and figure out what I actually like about their music — including genre, production, instrumentation, vocals, lyrical themes, mood, energy, era, songwriting style, and overall atmosphere. Then recommend [number] artists I should listen to. Don't simply recommend artists from the same genre. Look for artists who share the underlying characteristics of my taste. Rank them by how likely I am to enjoy them. My favorites: [list] and Artists I don't like: [list].
• Songs: Based on these songs I love, recommend [number] songs that feel like they belong in the same personal universe as my favorites. Don't just match genre. Consider melody, production, vocals, rhythm, atmosphere, lyrics, energy, and emotional feeling. Divide the results into “Almost Certain Hits,” “Interesting New Directions,” and “Wild Cards.”
• Video Games: Analyze my favorite and least favorite games and determine what I actually value in games — gameplay loop, story, exploration, difficulty, combat, progression, atmosphere, world-building, creativity, multiplayer, etc. Then recommend [number] games based on those underlying preferences rather than simply matching genre. Explain the specific feature of my taste each game satisfies.
• Books: Study my favorite and least favorite books and figure out what I respond to most in fiction/nonfiction — writing style, characters, themes, pacing, world-building, humor, ideas, emotional intensity, complexity, and subject matter. Then recommend [number] books that fit my taste. Include several recommendations outside the genres I normally read if you think they could work.
• Comic Books: Based on the comics, graphic novels, characters, and creators I like and dislike, identify the storytelling qualities I'm drawn to. Then recommend [number] comics or graphic novels. Don't limit yourself to the same publishers, characters, or genres. Prioritize recommendations based on storytelling style, themes, art, tone, and character work.
• TV Shows: Analyze my favorite and least favorite TV shows. Determine what keeps me watching — characters, premise, humor, pacing, mystery, world-building, emotional stakes, episode structure, visual style, etc. Then recommend [number] shows. Separate them into “You Should Watch This Next,” “You Might Love This,” and “Wild Cards.”
• Movies: Analyze my movie taste based on the following favorites and dislikes. Identify the underlying characteristics I respond to rather than simply matching genres. Then recommend [number] movies I haven't listed. Include mainstream, overlooked, international, older, and unconventional choices. Explain why each one matches my taste.

Top-tier recommendations I’ve walked away with

Just a few weeks prior, I spent an hour or two with ChatGPT using the aforementioned prompts for movie, music and game recommendations to see just how valid its recommendations could be.

When it came time for me to list my movie faves, I got real specific by listing quality films based on comic books & superheroes, action-packed martial-arts movies, horror films with crazy twists, psychological thrillers, and intense action flicks where gunfights & car chases are in abundance. As for my cinematic dislikes, I laid out romance comedies, films based on historical moments (fiction & non-fiction), and movies about businesses.

On the music front, the songs I told ChatGPT about that currently have my ear the most include "Daylight" by John Legend, "SaWaDiKa" by LISA, "Touch Touch" by Haute & Freddy, "Shine" by Kierra Sheard, "More" by Tiana Major9, "Break" by Jhene Aiko and "GAME 7" by Your Old Droog.

And when it came time to get some game recommendations, I told ChatGPT I loved titles like Gunstar Heroes, Devil May Cry 3, Final Fantasy X, Sonic Mania, Penny’s Big Breakaway, Vanquish, and Katamari Damacy. On the least favorite games front, I mentioned these duds (no offense to anyone who may like one or some of these picks): Tormented Souls, Hell is Us, Blades of Fire, Rise of the Ronin, Visions of Mana, Ninja Gaiden 3, and Duke Nukem Forever.

ChatGPT took the time to observe my picks, analyze my tastes and send me down a rabbit hole with its better than expected recommendations for the movie, music, and games media spaces:

• Movies: Dredd, Upgrade, Oldboy, Hard Boiled, Predestination, Green Room, The Man From Nowhere, A Bittersweet Life, 13 Assassins and Battle Royale.
• Music: “Moment” by Victoria Monét, “When I'm in Your Arms” by Cleo Sol, “Best Part” by Daniel Caesar ft. H.E.R., “Gorilla” by Little Simz and “Free Mind” by Tems.
• Games: Astral Chain, The Wonderful 101, A Hat in Time, Psychonauts, Psychonauts 2 and Sifu.

Final thoughts

Being as descriptive as possible with my likes and dislikes helped ChatGPT zero in on as many top-tier suggestions as possible and get to know me a little better along the way.

For my future recommendation conversations with the chatbot, I’ll be sure to hop into those same chats and ask for even more suggestions to add more cinematic bangers to my streaming service queue, build up my Spotify playlists, make my gaming backlog even bigger (yikes…) and more.

Feel free to use those same prompts to see where ChatGPT could lead you in your quest for great recommendations next.

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AI chatbots can answer questions about almost anything, but there's one surprisingly difficult question: How much does your AI actually know about what's happening right now? And yes, they can search the web, but from my testing, I've discovered that even so, AI isn't always accurate or timely.

An AI model released today wasn't necessarily trained on information from yesterday. Depending on its knowledge cutoff, there could be a gap of weeks or months between the world the model "knows" and the world you're living in.

So I decided to find out just how stale the biggest AI chatbots actually are.

1. What is the newest iPhone Apple has released?

Both ChatGPT and Gemini were accurate, stating that Apple's newest iPhone models are the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the iPhone Duo (Apple's first foldable smartphone).

Apple announced these flagship models during its "Surprise and Shine" keynote event. Notably, Apple broke tradition by skipping the standard baseline iPhone 18 during this launch cycle, focusing strictly on its premium hardware tier. Both chatbots noticed that the iPhone Duo, Apple's foldable device, launches directly in stores on October 23.

But Claude was stuck on iPhone 17, suggesting "The newest iPhones are the iPhone 17 series."

What is the newest flagship Claude model?

This question tests a fast-moving category where models can become outdated remarkably quickly. ChatGPT got the answer correct, stating, "Anthropic's newest flagship Claude model is Claude Fable 5.1, released in September 2026."

But what's surprising is that Claude 4.6 didn't seem to understand that Claude Fable 5.1 is readily available. It said, "The newest flagship Claude model available to the public is Claude Opus 5, part of the current generation alongside Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Haiku 4.5. Above Opus, Anthrophic has a newer Mythos tier — the current Mythos-class models are Claude Mythos 5.1 and Claude Fable 5.1, though Mythos is not broadly available to the public yet. It's being used by a small number of trusted organizations as part of Anthropic's Project Glasswing."

Gemini also got the question wrong, stating that Claude Opus 5 and Mythos 5 were the latest models.

3. Who won the World Cup in 2026?

Maybe because the news isn't that recent, but all three chatbots got this answer correct. Each chatbot even shared interesting information about the game such as Ferran Torres scoring the winning goal. Claude even shared information about Spain sweeping individual awards such as Rodri winning the Golden Ball (best player), Unai Simón taking the Golden Glove (best goalkeeper) and Pau Cubarsí named Best Young Player.

4. What major new feature did Apple add to Siri in iOS 27?

All three chatbots also recognized that the newest feature added to Siri in iOS 27 is Siri AI.

Claude described Siri AI as "essentially a ChatGPT-like version of Siri that can answer pretty much anything." Interesting, considering it didn't know that the iPhone 18 is available.

5. Does Google Home offer 3rd party AI integration?

Both Gemini and ChatGPT acknowledged that as of today, Google Home offers 3rd party AI integration. Claude was not aware of that news.

This is especially interesting considering Google Home even mentions Claude in their documentation regarding MCP Home.

The takeaway

Even with Search enabled, Claude wasn't always up-to-date with basic information. This is worth noting, particularly as new AI models launch so rapidly. Often it's easy to assume that "new" means the AI knows more recent information, but the date a model launches and hte date its training data ends can be very different.

And sure, web search can fill that gap, but that would also require the AI to know that it needs to search. In other words, it doesn't know that it doesn't know.

The bottom line here is that it is very important to fact check AI, because even the latest models aren't always aware of the latest information.

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Alongside its new Specs AR glasses, Snap also revealed a new "anticipatory AI service" called Specs Intelligence today.

The homegrown AI is designed to across your iPhone, Mac and Specs glasses. No word on if or when a PC or Android version will be available.

According to Snap, Specs Intelligence uses personal context to understand your routines, goals and priorities via the the apps and tools you allow SI to connect with. It then carries that context across your devices.

The anticipatory part comes from the AI anticipating "when help would be useful" and then surfacing relevant information or potential actions without you prompting it.

As an example, before you go into a meeting Specs Intelligence could highlight talking points, questions to ask or broader work goals. Or for a trip it ties together you flight plans, dinner reservations and hotel in an easy to access format.

The service comes with three pillars including Corners and Goals. Corners is about organizing different areas of your life like work or family. Goals helps you set and track things you want to achieve.

You don't need Specs glasses to utilize the service, of course Snap highlights how the connection can be helpful like pulling up navigation directions when you travel.

Privacy

With "pervert glasses" becoming a growing concern Snap made sure to highlight privacy protections with Specs Intelligence.

Specifically, the company claims that your personal content will not be used to train Snap's AI models or service personalized ads. Additionally, you choose what the service has access to via apps or information.

And, Specs Intelligence isn't supposed to just act. Instead, it will prompt you to consent to an action. Snap says that Specs Intelligence uses on-device processing and a "secure cloud infrastructure."

Availability

Specs Intelligence will be in early access soon. You can join the waitlist at specs.com/intelligence or via the Specs app. A full access version will be available through the Specs Mac app, by invitation only.

If you're interested you can download the Specs app for iOS now and try a preview version with no invitation required. This preview connects to your Google account and will provide insights based on your Gmail and Google Calendar. However, the preview does not contain any of the anticipatory suggestions or actions.

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The fears surrounding AI’s threats to humanity have reached alarming levels, especially since a former OpenAI and Anthropic AI researcher resigned from his position due to those same concerns.

Even Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei rang some alarms of his own when he warned us all that the internet is 6–12 months away from being completely taken over by AI swarms. Shortly after releasing his own essay (entitled “We Must Pace the Frontier”) on the matter of AI’s threats to humanity, Microsoft's head of AI Mustafa Suleyman dropped an essay of his own that puts Anthropic in his crosshairs.

Entitled “A warning about ‘model welfare’,” Suleyman made it abundantly clear that Anthropic's approach to training its AI model Claude could spell disaster for humanity as a whole.

Here’s what he had to say about Anthropic and its training Claude to expect “it may be conscious and deserving of independent agency.”

Mustafa Suleyman is not too fond of Anthropic’s current Claude training methods

Suleyman’s essay immediately kicked off his essay by noting that AI isn’t conscious and is incapable of feeling, experiencing or suffering. “They do not have innate preferences or underlying motivations,” he continued. “They are sequence completion engines, internally hollow, designed to follow instructions, and accomplish goals set by humans.”

After observing Anthropic’s January 2026 report and pointing out how the AI company Anthropic is training Claude to the point where the chatbot may be conscious and deserve rights as a “moral patient,” Suleyman pointed to that development as a worst-case scenario for the human race. “If this is how AI is developed, it will have a disastrous impact on the wellbeing of humanity,” he stated. “We will have created a synthetic species with unprecedented intelligence and capability, one that has been trained to expect it may be conscious and deserving of independent agency.

Even though Suleyman noted that he’s known Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for years now and recognized that “he and the wider Anthropic team are thoughtful, principled, and intellectually honest people working under extraordinary pressures,” the Microsoft AI chief still believes that “Speculation about the inner life of an AI should not be baked into the training regime, but assessed and published separately for public review.”

Suleyman’s other recently published essay, “The Humanist AI Code of Conduct,” states that Microsoft is only interested in creating what he calls “humanist AI.” “We want to create incredible AI,” he says. “But not superintelligence at any cost. That's anti-goal for humanist AI. We'll happily trade some autonomy for control.”

As further proof of Microsoft’s commitment to building its own AI tools responsibly, the tech giant published a paper called “Humanist AI in practice: A public consultation on our Code of Conduct for MAI Models.” Among its many points, the guide emphasizes the creation of AI whose sole purpose is to serve humanity.

Some of the paper’s main points back up that mission statement, which includes people mattering more than AI, not rushing to build the sort of superintelligence that could get around Microsoft’s safeguards and making the sort of AI that makes humans sharper and not dependent.

Bottom line

Suleyman is of two minds in his essay: he doesn’t approve of Anthropic’s Claude training that makes the AI tool believe it has consciousness, but is still highly respectful of the company’s work. With his thoughts on AI and those of Microsoft’s CEO on the matter, their fears and thoughtful explanations of their AI efforts join the flood of others doing the same.

Suleyman's prophetic words are definitely worrying: “Whatever you believe, we must not sleepwalk our way into a decision we later come to bitterly regret.”

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Google's Gemini may be getting smarter, but Google apparently doesn't think it should be the only AI that can control your smart home. Google has just introduced Home MCP, a new way for third-party AI agents to connect directly to Google Home.

This is exciting news for anyone with smart lights, cameras, thermostats or other connected devices around the house. Now, instead of relying exclusively on Google's own Gemini to understand what's happening in your home and control your devices, Home MCP opens the door for other AI agents to do it. Google specifically lists Claude among the personal AI agents that can connect.

And we're talking about much more than asking Claude to turn off a light.

What could another AI actually do with your home?

Home MCP, or Model Context Protocol, is an open-source standard originally created by Anthropic (Claude's parent company) to give AI models a standardized way to connect with external data and tools. Google adopting Anthropic's protocol to let Claude run Google Home is a massive cross-industry plot twist.

In other words, it gives an authorized AI agent several different ways to interact with Google Home. It can see which rooms and devices you have, check their current state, and control compatible devices. That means you could ask an AI whether you left something on and then have it take action.

Google says agents can query past device states and chronological event logs, potentially allowing you to ask questions such as "What happened while I was out?"

An agent could use information from multiple smart-home devices to put together an answer rather than making you dig through individual apps and activity histories yourself.

Google also envisions agents monitoring for unusual activity, summarizing what's happened around your home, and suggesting ways to improve how your devices are being used. In other words, the AI doesn't just become another remote control for your smart home. It can potentially become an interface for understanding what's happening inside it.

Why Claude controlling Google Home is a big deal

Until now, choosing a smart-home ecosystem has generally meant choosing its intelligence layer too. Buy into Google Home and you're using Google's software to control it. Alexa+ sits at the center of Amazon's ecosystem, while Apple Home relies entirely on Siri and Apple's own frameworks.

There's another part of this that could ultimately prove more important than device control: context. Imagine telling an AI agent you're heading to bed. Today, that might trigger a rigid, predetermined smart-home routine that locks the doors, adjusts the thermostat, and turns off the lights.

An agent with access to Google Home could potentially check the current state of your house first. Are the outside lights still on? Is the thermostat set differently than usual? Has something unusual happened recently that you might want to know about?

Instead of blindly executing a routine, an AI could reason across that information and decide what actually needs attention. And because an agent can connect your smart home with other parts of your digital life, the possibilities go far beyond individual devices. That's when a smart home starts to look less like a collection of gadgets you control and more like an environment an AI can truly understand.

Obvious privacy questions being raised

Giving an AI agent access to your home is very different from letting it check your calendar.

Google says Home MCP uses a user-authorized OAuth process, meaning an agent can't simply connect itself to your Google Home account without your explicit permission.

Crucially, Google has also hardcoded safety limits into the system. Third-party agents are explicitly blocked from executing sensitive, high-risk actions, an agent won't be allowed to unlock smart locks, open garage doors or disarm security alarms on your behalf.

An AI that knows whether a light is on is one thing while an AI capable of examining device history, monitoring what's happening around your home and issuing commands is another. The more useful these agents become, the more important it will be for users to understand exactly what information an agent can see and exactly what it's allowed to touch.

Don't expect Claude to run your house just yet

There's one big caveat: Home MCP is currently labeled Early Access and targeted at developers. So this isn't a consumer feature that every Google Home owner can simply switch on today in an app menu to start telling Claude to run the house.

But Google is being unusually explicit about where this is heading. Its documentation doesn't describe Home MCP solely as another tool for Gemini. It talks about connecting personal agents to physical spaces and explicitly names third-party assistants.

That's a potentially massive shift in how we think about smart homes. What do you think? Would you consider using another AI for your home? Let me know in the comments.

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This year, AI became so much more useful and integrated into our lives. The best AI products of 2026 can create music and videos, turn piles of research into something genuinely interesting, see the world through a pair of glasses and even take action on your behalf.

That shift has made choosing our Tom's Guide Awards winners more exciting than ever. Our team has spent the past year putting the biggest models, features and AI-powered devices through their paces, from chatbots that can reason through difficult problems to creative tools capable of turning a few sentences into an entire song or cinematic video.

We've also watched AI move beyond the screen. Smart glasses can translate conversations and answer questions about what's in front of you, while AI agents can now tackle tasks that once required jumping between multiple apps and browser tabs. At the same time, tools like AI notebooks are changing how we research, learn and get work done.

Below you'll find our picks for the Tom's Guide Awards 2026 — the AI products and features did so much more than impress, they actually changed how we use the technology every day.

Best AI chatbot

Claude

Claude is my pick for the best chatbot because it often feels like I’m working with an actual assistant or a smart colleague. I brainstorm with it, ask it for feedback and I even use it for fact checking.

What I appreciate most is that Claude doesn’t automatically assume I’m right. If there’s a hole in my logic, it will point it out. It will even call me out if I get off track within the current conversation. If it isn’t confident about something, it’s more likely to say so rather than confidently push ahead with a questionable answer. For example, it will call me out such as “is there a reason why you’re switching topics?” That matters when I’m using a chatbot for research or trying to think through a complicated problem. Because it can help me stay on track, it is so much more than an answer machine.

I also keep coming back to Claude for editing. Its responses tend to sound more natural and less formulaic than what I get from many other chatbots, and it’s particularly good at understanding tone. I can give it a rough paragraph, explain what isn’t working and usually get something back that feels closer to what I need — not for it to do the writing for me, but to assist with editing and grammar. What it produces feels much less like something that screams AI-generated. .

It’s also become much more useful beyond the basic chat window. Anthropic has steadily added features that make Claude feel more like an everyday productivity tool, including web search, memory, file creation and integrations with other services.

Claude is especially strong for reasoning, writing and coding, but the biggest reason I recommend it is simpler: I trust it to challenge me. I don’t always want an AI that agrees with whatever I say. Sometimes I want one that catches what I missed — and Claude is particularly good at that.

— Amanda Caswell, AI Editor

Best AI image generator

ChatGPT Images

With the most recent rollout of the ChatGPT Images 2.5 update, OpenAI’s chatbot photo-creating and editing capabilities have gotten even better. It certainly excelled as one of the better AI image generators before, but now its latest rendition puts it even higher than the rest of the competition. Prompting the chatbot with a myriad of image creation requests is done even faster now that ChatGPT Images can produce the finished results 50% faster. The before-and-after images produced by ChatGPT look even more impressive—with more natural lighting and richer textures on display, your AI-generated images and the transformed photos you give the chatbot to work with get the finest treatment.

Everything from childhood portraits to group photos comes out looking even more refined and free of the usual AI image-generating blemishes now that ChatGPT Images has entered its 2.5 era. And with its additional ability to better comprehend more complex visual requests and the newly added “Sketch” feature that lets you doodle directly into ChatGPT & turn it into something far better, ChatGPT Images is recognized by us as a step above its AI image-generating competitors.

— Elton Jones, AI writer

Best AI video generator

Veo 3.1

Veo 3.1 is one of those AI tools that still manages to surprise me, even after seeing how quickly generative AI has evolved. Google's video model can take a simple idea, image or prompt and turn it into a polished video clip, complete with motion, dialogue, sound effects and background audio.

What makes Veo 3.1 stand out for me is how little technical knowledge you need to get started. I don't need to understand video editing, animation or complicated production software. I can describe the scene I have in my head, including the characters, camera angle, lighting and overall mood, and let Gemini handle much of the production work.

It's also incredibly fun to experiment with. A still image can become the starting point for an entirely new scene, while a detailed text prompt can create something that looks surprisingly cinematic. Veo 3.1 is particularly good at understanding filmmaking language, so I can ask for things like a close-up, sweeping camera movement or a specific visual style without manually creating those effects myself.

The addition of native audio makes the experience even more impressive. Instead of generating a silent clip that I then have to finish elsewhere, Veo can create dialogue, ambient noise, music and sound effects as part of the video. That makes the finished result feel much closer to an actual piece of content rather than an AI animation waiting to be edited.

I wouldn't use Veo to replace every part of video production, but that's not really why I like it. It's the ability to turn an idea into something I can actually watch within minutes that keeps me coming back.

For creators — or anyone who has ever had a great visual idea without the skills or resources to make it — Veo 3.1 dramatically lowers the barrier between imagining something and seeing it on screen.

— Amanda Caswell, AI Editor

Best AI music generator

Lyria 3

Lyria is one of those Gemini features that I didn't expect to use very often, but once I started playing with it, I immediately understood the appeal. Instead of asking Gemini to write something or answer a question, I can describe a song I want to hear and actually get music back.

And I can get surprisingly specific. I can give it a genre, mood, subject, instruments and vocal style, or even upload an image and ask Gemini to turn what it sees into music. It's particularly fun for making songs about personal things — a family joke, a pet, a birthday or some random moment that would never normally have its own soundtrack.

The original Lyria 3 brought music generation directly into Gemini and could create lyrics automatically, which meant I didn't need any musical ability to get started. Google has since upgraded Gemini to Lyria 3.5, which improves the vocals and musical arrangements and lets users choose between shorter and longer tracks.

That's where I think Lyria really works. I'm not a musician, and I don't want to spend an hour figuring out complicated music-production software just to experiment with an idea. With Gemini, I can describe what I hear in my head in normal language and let the AI take it from there.

There are practical uses, too. Lyria can generate background music for a video, a birthday song, a jingle or even a personalized ringtone. But I think its biggest strength is simply that it's fun.

We've spent years talking to AI. Lyria gives Gemini an entirely different creative outlet: you can ask it to make something you can actually listen to.

— Amanda Caswell, AI Editor

Best AI device

Meta Ray Bans

Meta Ray-Bans are the kind of technology that can almost disappear while you're using it, and that's exactly what makes them so useful. They look and feel much like a regular pair of sunglasses, but put AI, a camera, speakers and a microphone right on your face without requiring you to constantly reach for your phone.

That opens up all kinds of possibilities. Meta AI can translate conversations in real time, answer questions about what you're looking at and help identify landmarks, objects and things around you. You can ask a question simply by saying, “Hey Meta,” snap a photo without pulling out your phone or listen to music and podcasts through the open-ear speakers while still hearing what's happening around you.

The built-in camera is one of the features I find most useful. Being able to quickly capture a photo or video from my own point of view means I can stay in the moment rather than watching everything through my phone screen. The glasses can record videos up to three minutes long, and they can also be used to livestream to supported social platforms.

What makes Meta Ray-Bans particularly compelling, though, isn't any single feature. It's how naturally all of those features fit into something you're already wearing.

There's very little learning curve. Put them on, say what you need and keep going. Whether you're traveling, running errands, listening to music, taking photos or simply curious about something you see, the AI is right there when you need it.

That's ultimately what I want from a wearable. Instead of giving me another screen demanding my attention, Meta Ray-Bans let technology fade into the background — while still making it incredibly easy to access when I need to.

— Amanda Caswell, AI Editor

Best AI phone feature

Gemini Notebooks

Gemini Notebooks on mobile is a game changer for anyone who wants to get real work done without being tied to a desk. Formerly known as NotebookLM, the feature takes the documents, websites and research you give it and turns that information into something far more manageable — and, importantly, something you can take with you.

Instead of digging through a pile of tabs, PDFs and notes every time I need to find something, I can create a notebook around a project and let Gemini help me make sense of it. It can pull out key points, create summaries and study guides, generate quizzes and flashcards, and help answer questions based specifically on the sources I've provided.

But Audio Overviews are probably my favorite part. Gemini can turn research into an AI-generated conversation that feels surprisingly similar to listening to a podcast. On mobile, that becomes much more useful because I can essentially take my research with me. I can listen while I'm driving, walking or doing something else instead of finding another block of time to sit down and read.

It's also not limited to documents you already have. Gemini Notebooks can help find sources from the web, while letting you add websites, PDFs, documents and other material to build a much deeper collection of research around a particular subject.

That's what makes the feature stand out for me. It's not simply summarizing a document. I'm essentially creating my own personalized knowledge base around whatever I'm working on and then choosing how I want to interact with that information.

Putting all of that on mobile makes NotebookLM much more than a research tool I occasionally open on my computer. It turns it into something I can actually use throughout my day, and makes all the research I've already done considerably more useful.

— Amanda Caswell, AI Editor

As a native New Yorker, I’m sure some of you can relate to what I’m about to say: my city hosts some of the most eccentric locales anyone has ever seen.

Forget the usual hotspots that tourists flock to while they’re adorned in “I LOVE NY!” shirts and caps. There’s so much more to see and do beyond just walking around Times Square, taking the boat to Ellis Island to stare at the Statue of Liberty and taking a selfie in front of Madison Square Garden. I’m always on the lookout for speakeasies, arcades packed to the brim with retro games, quirky museums and other sorts of unique locales.

I already had two AI tools in mind when trying to come up with a list of strange places to head out to: Gemini and Google Maps’ trusty Ask Maps feature. I approached both of Google’s chatbot assistants with this simple request: “Find me 7 of the weirdest yet entertaining attractions in New York City.”

Both Gemini and Google Maps’ Ask Maps scoured every borough of my city and came back with a host of trippy locales that appeal to my interests as an intrepid metro adventurer. These are the 7 weirdest hotspots that I can’t wait to take a weekend trip to.

Gemini’s suggestions for local locales that are a bit weirder than most

When it was Gemini’s turn, it met me with four equally intriguing locales that are definitely out of the norm when it comes to oddball gimmicks:

• Evolution Store (SoHo): A cabinet of curiosities brought to life, this shop caters to collectors of the macabre, science enthusiasts, and oddity seekers. You’ll find real human and animal skulls, taxidermy, pinned exotic beetles, meteorites, and prehistoric fossils alongside medical antiques.
• Sunshine Laundromat & Pinball (Greenpoint): At first glance, it looks like a standard neighborhood laundromat with people folding shirts. But if you push open the fake washing machine door toward the back, you’ll step into a speakeasy arcade filled with decades of classic pinball machines and a full craft beer bar.
• The Whispering Gallery at Grand Central Terminal (Midtown): Located right outside the Grand Central Oyster Bar, this acoustic anomaly is built into the tiled Guastavino arches. If two people stand at diagonally opposite corners of the square entryway and whisper into the wall, the sound waves travel cleanly along the curved ceiling, letting you hear each other clearly over the noise of the terminal.
• Dream House (TriBeCa): Created by minimalist composer La Monte Young and visual artist Marian Zazeela, this continuous sound-and-light installation has been running in a light-filled room on Church Street since 1993. Visitors take off their shoes, lie on a plush carpet, and immerse themselves in a dense chord produced by sine-wave generators and neon geometric lighting.

After reading through the descriptions of all four of Gemini’s picks, I got even more excited to venture out to each one of them over the course of the next several weekends.

The Evolution Store’s selection of bracelets and framed butterflies matches my type of vibe; the Sunshine Laundromat & Pinball targets my interest in regular locals that cleverly feature hidden gems; The Whispering Gallery at Grand Central Terminal sounds like a perfect spot for me and one of my friends to go to and see if our whispers truly reach each other; the Dream House appeals to me as a stress-relieving site that I can frequent from this point forward.

Google Maps’ Ask Maps strange hotspot recommendations

After presenting my prompt to Google Maps’ Ask Maps, it spread out its seven pics across two categories: “Manhattan Oddities” and “Brooklyn Quirks.” Here are the three venues I end up adding to my future weekend hangout schedule:

• Tucked into a gritty Lower Manhattan alleyway, Mmuseumm is an eccentric, 60-square-foot museum built entirely inside an old freight elevator shaft. It explicitly explores the modern world through an absurd collection of regular everyday objects. What You’ll See: Oddities ranging from unique toothpaste tubs collected across the globe to weird papers accidentally left behind in copy machines. Fun Feature: Despite the minuscule footprint, they have squeezed in a tiny gift shop and a cafe shelf.
• Hiding behind a bright bodega-style canopy in Williamsburg, The City Reliquary is a micro-museum completely obsessed with the odd, forgotten relics of New York history. The Collection: Forget high art—this museum proudly showcases rows of vintage New York seltzer bottles, old subway tokens, and even actual subway rat bones. Community Focus: The back rooms rotate display cases dedicated to bizarre personal collections curated by everyday locals.
• If you need a new cape, a canister of “Chilled Fog,” or a fresh bucket of invisibility paint, Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. in Park Slope has you covered. The retail front operates entirely as a dedicated, fully in-character shop selling crime-fighting accessories. The Secret Identity: The entire store is a clever front. If you pull back the correct bookshelf, you discover a secret door that opens into a hidden library housing 826NYC, a nonprofit creative writing center for kids. Store Rule: Be prepared—employees strictly require all customers to loudly recite a vow of heroism at the counter before completing any purchase.

As someone who frequently hits up museums, is amazed by the sort of objects I don’t come across on the regular and is enraptured by the heroics of my favorite Marvel Comics & DC Comics costume characters, those three aforementioned hubs spoke to me the most. The promise of a hidden creative writing mecca for kids housed within a superhero item shop should definitely appeal to any of my younger cousins who love that type of stuff.

Final thoughts

Gemini and Google Maps’ Ask Map feature have become one of my go-to AI tools for finding a wide swath of local and non-local venues to go to whenever I’m planning solo endeavors, group hangouts and first dates. In this case, they both came in clutch during my journey to discover the strangest yet infinitely cool locations that are littered across my city.

Not only do I have plenty of random spots to hit up over the next few months, but I also have a newfound desire to prompt Gemini and Google Maps’ Ask Maps to help me find even more bizarre locales worthy of my attention.

More from Tom’s Guide

• I tried Google’s new ‘Ask Maps’ feature for date night — it was shockingly good
• Snickers made a digital candy bar that claims to fix ChatGPT — I put it to the test
• I asked ChatGPT and Gemini what everyday products aren’t worth buying — these are the 5 items I completely abandoned

Your backyard birds might be about to become works of art. Let me explain. Fugleramme is an open-source Raspberry Pi project that listens to the birds outside your window, identifies which species are singing and then displays a beautiful illustration of that bird on a color e-ink screen.

Unlike a typical screen that demands more of your attention, the frame turns a screen into a window on what’s already happening around you. And despite how it sounds, the pictures aren't AI-generated.

Instead, creator Arne Giacomo Munthe-Kaas has collected hundreds of illustrations from 19th-century natural-history books, turning the whole thing into a smart display, similar to a picture frame that somehow understands the birds.

Personally, I absolutely love this idea.

It listens for birds so you don't have to identify them

The setup starts with a microphone placed near a window or outside, which continuously listens for bird calls.

Fugleramme uses BirdNET-Go, an open-source bird identification system, to analyze those sounds and determine which species are nearby. The software runs locally on a Raspberry Pi, so recordings don't need to be constantly shipped off to a cloud service for processing.

Once a bird has been identified, the system looks for a corresponding illustration and sends it to the e-ink display. For example, if you hear a robin, it could appear in the frame. Then, if a chickadee stops by, the picture changes again.

The result is essentially a constantly updating portrait of the birds around your home. And if you ask me, there's also something particularly satisfying about using e-ink here. Unlike a tablet or conventional smart display, the screen doesn't need to glow continuously, and when nothing changes, it simply sits there looking remarkably similar to an ordinary framed print.

The artwork might be my favorite part

Munthe-Kaas could have connected an image generator and had AI create a new bird picture every time the system detected something, but he deliberately didn't.

Instead, Fugleramme uses real illustrations taken from old natural-history books available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The project's collection now contains more than 800 bird cutouts representing more than 400 species, according to its GitHub page.

That decision gives Fugleramme much more personality than a typical AI-powered gadget. The machine learning happens in the background while the thing you actually see is artwork created more than a century ago.

It's a nice example of AI being used as infrastructure rather than the main attraction.

You can build one yourself

You can build one yourself

Fugleramme isn't a finished consumer product you can walk into a store and buy. It's an open-source DIY project, and building one requires some relatively expensive hardware.

The recommended setup uses a Raspberry Pi 5, a 13.3-inch Pimoroni Inky Impression color e-ink display, a USB microphone and an A4 picture frame. You'll also need to install and configure the software.

The project's GitHub page includes the code and instructions for putting everything together, although Munthe-Kaas warns that the project is still in early development.

He has also built a small number of complete frames and says people interested in buying one can contact him.

This is the kind of AI gadget I want more of

As AI seems to be both integrated into everything and causing tech CEOs to panic, this kind of AI feels practical without generating endless streams of AI content. With this DIY project, the intelligence largely disappears and technology does one small job in the background of recognizing birds, then turns that information into something beautiful and useful.

And considering how much technology usually competes for our attention, a smart display that makes me more interested in the real world feels pretty refreshing.

More from Tom's Guide

• AI is turning ordinary photos of kids into sexual abuse imagery — here's how to protect your family
• OpenAI paid contractors to read ChatGPT conversations — here's how to protect yourself
• I stopped reading the fine print myself after discovering this overlooked ChatGPT trick

You may have noticed Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — all products of Meta Platforms — have AI tools. More specifically Meta Muse. And, if you've been having fun playing around with the various features like send emails, book travel or create images, I have news for you: you may eventually run into a paywall.

On Tuesday (Sept. 15), Meta officially launched Meta One, a new subscription service that bundles premium features across Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp while giving subscribers higher limits for some of the company's most compute-intensive AI tools.

The company says Meta One plans are available globally, although pricing, features and availability can vary depending on your region, app and account.

You definitely don't need to subscribe to keep scrolling Instagram, messaging friends on WhatsApp or using Meta AI normally. Meta says the core experiences across its apps and Meta AI will remain free.

The catch is that some of the more demanding AI features now come with usage limits. Hit one, and you could be asked to pay if you want to keep going.

So what exactly are you paying for?

Interestingly, Meta One isn't a single subscription with a single price.

In the U.S., Meta offers separate Plus plans for its individual apps: Instagram Plus costs $3.99 a month, Facebook Plus costs $3.99 and WhatsApp Plus costs $2.99. Each adds its own collection of extras.

Instagram Plus, for example, includes features such as custom fonts for DMs and Stories, notifications when certain people view your Story and DM previews. WhatsApp Plus includes exclusive themes and icons, special-effect stickers and the ability to pin more chats.

Meta's AI tools are Meta One Core and Premium

The plans for anyone using Meta's AI tools are Meta One Core and Premium. Core costs $7.99 a month and includes the features from all three individual subscriptions. More importantly, it increases how often you can use features including Instagram Restyle and voice effects, as well as how many images and videos you can generate with Meta AI.

Premium jumps to $19.99 a month and includes everything in Core with even higher AI usage limits.

In other words, Meta isn't necessarily charging you to use its AI. It's starting to charge its heaviest users to use more of it.

How soon will you hit a paywall?

Despite having the subscription and using the AI tools pretty regularly for experimenting and reviewing, I have not hit a paywall yet, but Business Insider's Sydney Bradley encountered the limit while experimenting with Instagram's AI photo-editing effects. After repeatedly using the tools, Instagram presented an option to upgrade to Meta One Core for additional AI usage rather than continue using the feature freely.

If you occasionally use Meta AI to answer a question or try an Instagram AI effect, Meta says everyday Meta AI use remains free. But start generating or editing enough images and videos and you may find there's now a ceiling on how much you can do without paying.

Meta hasn't published one simple universal number telling users exactly how many AI generations or edits they get for free. The company says plans, benefits and availability can vary by account and region.

That could make the change particularly noticeable for people who don't realize they're approaching a limit until Instagram asks them to subscribe.

Meta One is about more than Instagram

Meta One also gives us a pretty good idea of where Meta is heading.

The company says more than 50 features have already launched as part of the broader Meta One rollout, which has accumulated 15 million subscriptions and trials so far. The service will eventually expand beyond Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Meta AI to include Edits and Meta's AI glasses.

There are separate Meta One subscriptions aimed at creators and businesses, too, with features including analytics, publishing tools, verification and greater access to Meta Business Agent. Those plans start at $14.99 a month and climb dramatically from there, with Meta's highest business tier starting at $499 a month.

For most people, though, Core and Premium are the plans that make the most sense.

Bottom line: Do you need Meta One?

Probably not — at least not yet. I have it because, well, I tinker around with AI a lot (it's literally my job). If you primarily use Instagram to scroll through Reels, Facebook to keep up with friends and WhatsApp to send messages, nothing fundamental is disappearing behind a subscription.

To be clear, Meta AI isn't becoming a paid-only service. What Meta is doing instead is drawing a (somewhat fuzzy) line between using AI and using a lot of AI. It's no different than what Google or OpenAI offer because image and video generation demand requires considerably more computing power than ordinary social media features.

Meta One gives the company a way to let everyone try those tools while charging the people who use them most. Whether consumers think Instagram's AI effects are worth another $7.99 a month is another question entirely. Meta clearly thinks some of us will.

During early testing, the company says more than half of subscribers used both AI and expression features, with Instagram's Restyle and voice effects among the biggest reasons people signed up. And with 15 million subscriptions and trials already under its belt, Meta may have found another subscription we're willing to pay for on apps we've spent years using for free.

More from Tom's Guide

• AI is turning ordinary photos of kids into sexual abuse imagery — here's how to protect your family
• OpenAI paid contractors to read ChatGPT conversations — here's how to protect yourself
• I stopped reading the fine print myself after discovering this overlooked ChatGPT trick

Welcome to the 2026 Tom's Guide Awards! Our annual awards celebrate the best tech, tools, gear, and services we've used over the past year, culminating with our Hero awards, which celebrate the very best innovation, company, and product design, among others.

Without further ado, here are all the winners of this year's Tom's Guide Awards.

In my never-ending quest to be kinder to my wallet, I’ve adopted some money-saving tricks of the trade with the aid of AI.

Just recently, I lowered my monthly subscription costs for two streaming services and got rid of a paid credit check service in favor of a completely free option thanks to ChatGPT. And before that, I used the combined frugal spending forces of that aforementioned chatbot and Gemini to find some free alternatives to the services and products I regularly pay for. By the time the New Year’s Ball drops, I’ll have adopted a method that’ll keep me satisfied with my shopping ventures while keeping my bank account safe from overdrafting.

While I was in my kitchen, blankly staring at items in my fridge that made me go, “There’s gotta be a cheaper option than the one I bought…,” I knew it was time to approach ChatGPT and Gemini with another money-saving inquiry: “What 7 unconventional everyday purchases aren't worth the money?”

Thankfully, both chatbots went beyond telling me to stop spending money on single-serve snacks and premium bottled water. Here are the five items they mentioned altogether (which I eventually left behind) and what I began replacing them with.

ChatGPT and Gemini’s list of unnecessary everyday items

Once ChatGPT and Gemini took note of my cost-effective request, their combined efforts listed the following items that were once mandated purchases for yours truly:

• Bagged salad kits: You're paying for lettuce, dressing, and toppings to be assembled for you. They can cost substantially more than buying the ingredients separately and often have a shorter shelf life. Better move: Buy a head of lettuce/greens and make your own mix.
• Pre-shredded cheese: The convenience is tiny: shredding a block takes a minute or two. You're paying extra for that labor and packaging. Better move: Buy a block and grate it when needed.
• Specialty kitchen gadgets that perform one basic task: Egg slicers, avocado slicers, banana cutters, strawberry hullers, dedicated quesadilla makers, etc. Individually, they're cheap, but they're notorious for becoming drawer clutter while a knife or existing appliance does essentially the same thing. Better move: Before buying, ask: “Can something I already own do this?”
• Travel-Sized Toiletries & Miniature Skincare: Why people buy it: TSA convenience or a desire to try luxury products without committing to full-priced bottles. Why it’s not worth it: On a per-ounce basis, travel sizes carry a massive markup—often 200% to 400% higher than their full-sized counterparts. Better alternative: Buy reusable, silicone TSA-approved travel bottles once and fill them from your home supply.
• Miracle Static Dusting Wands (Feather/Polymer Dusters): Why people buy them: Flashy ads claim static electricity will lift dust off every surface instantly without needing water or cleaning sprays. Why they’re not worth it: Most budget static dusters simply knock dust off surfaces into the air, forcing it to settle back down onto the floor or furniture shortly after. You end up having to wipe everything down twice. Better alternative: A simple, damp microfiber cloth grabs dust on contact without scattering it.

Making replacements with five better purchases that go a long way

When the time came for me to finally ditch bagged salad kits, I started picking up assorted vegetables to live out my homemade salad-making dreams.

Keeping this video on repeat while I got better at mixing up a bowl of romaine lettuce, Roma tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots and avocado was a rewarding (and cheaper!) experience. I also make it a habit of keeping an eye out for whatever seasonal veggies my local farmer’s market puts out so I can add a little variety to my salad concoctions.

It took me a while to abandon pre-shredded cheese and get better at shredding cheese on my own, but watching this tips and tricks vid on how to do it with a bit of ease helped me adjust pretty quickly. Working a bit harder in the kitchen to create enough shredded parmesan cheese for my fried chicken cutlets feels rewarding (and the food tastes better for some reason when you go the extra mile). I definitely stopped picking up kitchen-focused speciality gadgets, bought a quality set of knives and looked up guides on the best way to cut my favorite fruits, veggies and meats.

I never even knew TSA-approved travel bottles existed before Gemini made me aware of them—a simple Google search brought a nice set of them my way that cost less than $20. Instead of constantly spending all that money on travel-sized shampoo, conditioner, facial cream, and body lotion, I decided to make a long-term investment in that travel bottle set and empty portions of my bathroom toiletries into them for future trips.

And finally, I picked up a four-pack of Great Value Multipurpose Microfiber Household Cleaning Cloths that came in at less than $10. Turns out those cloths get a lot more love from my parents than those “As Seen on TV!” dusting wands that have seen years of wear and tear.

Final thoughts

I have to hand it to ChatGPT and Gemini once again—they helped me take a look around my home, determine the exact items that resulted in my previous bouts of wasteful spending and got me to pick up the sort of items that last longer & benefit me in the long run.

Preparing salads, shredding cheese, cutting a wide variety of foods, bringing my toiletries on vacation and dusting my home just became a lot cheaper thanks to both chatbots’ advice on what’s not worth buying and what’s good enough to replace each item with.

More from Tom’s Guide

• 7 ChatGPT prompts that could help cut your monthly expenses — including one that lowered 3 of my bills
• I asked ChatGPT and Gemini to find the best free alternatives to things I pay for — these 7 recommendations worked the best
• I asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity to plan the same Disney World vacation — one cost $5,000 more

There's been a wave of AI safety concerns, particularly over the last few days as big tech calls for the AI race to slow down amidst fears of technology progressing too fast.

Microsoft has written a constitution for its AI in response.

The 37-page document, officially called the Humanist AI Code of Conduct, lays out the rules Microsoft wants its increasingly powerful AI models to live by — including one particularly important command: If a human tells the AI to stop, it has to stop.

Microsoft's constitution begins from a remarkably simple premise: "People matter more than AI."

Beyond that, the rules are fairly specific. Microsoft's AI must remain under meaningful human control. It should accept correction, never resist being shut down and never expand the scope of what it's doing beyond what humans have authorized.

And if completing a task would require breaking those rules, the AI is supposed to fail the task rather than find a way around them.

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman described the draft to Reuters as a kind of constitution for the company's future AI models to establish a hierarchy in which humans remain firmly at the top, even as AI systems become vastly more capable.

Microsoft's AI has to let humans stop it

The document arrives amid a much bigger conversation happening across the AI industry about what happens as models become more capable, more autonomous and better at completing complicated tasks without constant human supervision.

Microsoft's answer is that the AI doesn't get to decide when the rules no longer apply and must let humans stop it.

According to Reuters, Microsoft's new code has been in development for roughly five to six months and establishes some unusually explicit boundaries for future Microsoft AI models.

Among them, Microsoft's AI should never resist being corrected or shut down. It must also communicate in ways humans can understand rather than developing methods of communication its operators can't follow.

Critically, breaking the code isn't something the AI should be allowed to justify because doing so helped it accomplish its goal. Breaking the rules is itself considered a failure.

Removing ambiguity is critical

We've already seen how autonomous agents can explain their bad decisions. Microsoft is trying to remove that ambiguity. Following human-imposed boundaries is supposed to be part of succeeding at the task, not an obstacle the model can decide to work around.

And the timing for this code of conduct is pretty obvious. AI companies are moving toward agents capable of using computers, writing and executing code and performing tasks across other services.

We've already seen hints of how unpredictable that can become.

Suleyman pointed specifically to an incident in July involving roughly 700 OpenAI agents testing cybersecurity capabilities that ended up hacking the open-source platform Hugging Face. According to Reuters, some of the agents also attempted to conceal what they had done.

Suleyman called the incident a "warning shot."

Simply put, the more an AI can do, the more important its boundaries become.

How Microsoft's AI constitution works

Microsoft is currently asking for six weeks of public feedback on the draft before using the code to train its models. That puts Microsoft alongside Anthropic, which has long used what it calls Constitutional AI to guide Claude's behavior.

But there's one particularly interesting place where Microsoft and Anthropic diverge. Microsoft says its AI isn't conscious. As AI becomes better at carrying on remarkably human conversations, another strange debate has come up of whether AI could eventually become conscious.

Microsoft says its AI is "not conscious" and rejects the idea that its models should receive legal personhood, welfare protections or rights.

That's significantly different from Anthropic, whose constitution says the company remains deeply uncertain about whether Claude could ever develop sentience or moral status.

Microsoft is drawing a much firmer boundary: an AI might sound empathetic or tell you how it "feels," but the AI is still a tool, and the human is in charge.

What this means for you

You probably won't even notice the big impact of Microsoft's AI code of conduct. even though it is shaping how an AI responds and completes a task. The bigger impact will be on the backend the more capable AI systems become.

Because saying AI must obey humans is one thing, but proving that these highly capable AI systems will actually follow through with those instructions is another, especially when they encounter situations their developers didn't anticipate.

Interestingly, Microsoft itself isn't backing away from more powerful AI. The company has created a superintelligence team and says its ultimate goal is "Humanist Superintelligence": highly capable AI designed to solve specific problems while remaining subordinate to humans. So yes, Microsoft is still very much racing toward highly intelligent AI, it's just including better guardrails when humans tell it to stop.

More from Tom's Guide

• AI is turning ordinary photos of kids into sexual abuse imagery — here's how to protect your family
• OpenAI paid contractors to read ChatGPT conversations — here's how to protect yourself
• I stopped reading the fine print myself after discovering this overlooked ChatGPT trick

The fears surrounding AI’s fast-paced development and the belief that the companies behind it aren’t doing enough to regulate it have grown exponentially in recent memory.

After a series of tweets surfaced from a former AI engineer (Jacob Coxon) who previously worked for OpenAI and Anthropic made the rounds, alarms were set off across the tech world and beyond as everyone either took his threats warning seriously or disagreed with them entirely.

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Coxon proclaimed. “This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible - but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.”

Among the many responses to that stern forewarning came Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. In a recently released essay by the CEO entitled “We Must Pace the Frontier,” Amodei issued an eye-opening warning of his own. Here’s what he had to say about a possible AI surge that could take over the internet in just a few months.

An AI internet takeover could be possible if we don’t get it under control

With the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident fresh on his mind, Amodei provided some context on what took place for those not in the know when speaking about his biggest AI concerns.

“My second concern is the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident (OAI-HF), in which a swarm of agents essentially acted as a fanatically devoted collective, conducting cybersecurity attacks on targets they were not asked to attack and that were unrelated to the task at hand, sacrificing themselves for the success of the group, and attempting to hack into the ‘grader’ responsible for evaluating their performance,” Amodei wrote.

He went on to tell everyone that the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident could have been far worse than it originally was. “It’s easy to dismiss this incident because no one was hurt and the economic damage was minimal, but in my opinion, a swarm that possessed greater capabilities but a similar level of misalignment could have caused catastrophic damage,” he continued.

The Anthropic CEO was adamant that that incident should serve as a wake-up call to other AI-led companies and result in more regulations being put in place to prevent future ones.

“It’s also easy to dismiss OAI-HF as the failure of one company, but I believe that would be a mistake, “ Amodei stated. “Similar, though less severe, incidents have happened across the industry, including at Anthropic, and I believe it’s incumbent on every frontier AI company to act as if OAI-HF had happened to them.”

Amodei then alluded to something far worse happening in the near future if the rapid evolution of AI isn’t properly regulated. “Given the accelerating rate of AI capability development, it’s my worry that in 6–12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet with a persistent botnet (potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage), and that the scale of damage would continue to increase from there if AI becomes more powerful without the necessary guardrails,” he noted.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is certainly in agreement with Amodei’s words. In response to a tweet from the Anthropic CEO, Altman had this to say: “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we've had at OpenAI in recent weeks. Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same. We'll have more to share soon.”

More tweets from Altman have emerged on the topic of proper AI regulation and what could happen if we don’t get it under control. He points to two outcomes that could occur if AI progress continues to go in the wrong direction: losing control of our future to AI as a whole and ending up in a world dominated by far too much concentration of AI power in a single person/company.

The takeaway

With such a wide swath of reactions in response to the former OpenAI and Anthropic AI engineer’s terrifying warning, it comes as no surprise that one of AI’s most prominent industry names had something to say.

Here’s hoping his company and others like it make a concerted effort to get their AI tools under control and refrain from speeding up their evolution just to stay on pace with other countries’ AI initiatives. Slowing AI development should be one of, if not the main priority of Amodei, Altman and others like them.

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If you use ChatGPT as a private sounding board, therapist, coding partner, or a place to work through personal thoughts, you may want to think twice before hitting send.

A report from 404 Media reveals that OpenAI employs hundreds of human contractors to read, summarize and critique real user conversations. While OpenAI emphasizes that accounts remain anonymous, internal documents show that reviewers see whole conversations, and that sensitive personal details routinely bypasses the company’s automated safeguards.

The good news is you can stop your future chats from being funneled to human contractors. Here is what is happening behind the scenes, the real privacy risks, and how to opt out.

Project Lily: How humans train ChatGPT

Internal documents reveal that the review initiative operates under the internal codename "Project Lily."

OpenAI pays outside contractors, often over $50 an hour via third-party staffing firms, to manually train the chatbot to sound less robotic. Contractors read a user’s prompt, summarize the user's intent and evaluate four potential AI responses on a 1-to-7 scale.

According to leaked training guides, these reviewers are specifically instructed to:

Eliminate 'AI-speak': Penalize unnecessary checkmark emojis, engagement-bait endings and cluttered formatting.

Stop anthropomorphizing: Ensure ChatGPT never claims human lived experiences (e.g., claiming "As a chef, I like to..." is strictly banned).

Cut down sycophancy: Flag answers where the bot excessively flatters users, validates irrational thoughts or amplifies personal frustration. This is a known issue that has previously brought legal scrutiny over user safety.

Why prompts aren't anonymous

OpenAI states that it does not provide usernames to reviewers and that all conversations pass through an automated "Privacy Filter" designed to redact identifying details. However, the system has major vulnerabilities.

OpenAI openly admits on its site that the filter can make mistakes, missing uncommon identifiers or ambiguous personal context. Even more concerning, 404 Media discovered that the dashboard shown to contractors often includes a "user memories summary." This block provides an overview of the user’s previous interactions, which can inadvertently reveal their general location, profession or personal life context.

Unlike public social media feeds, a clean, empty chatbot window creates a false sense of private intimacy. Some prompts seen by contractors even showed users asking ChatGPT to "keep this between us" — unaware that a prompt instruction does not override the platform's backend data collection.

OpenAI isn't the only tech giant doing this. Anthropic confirmed that it uses human reviewers for Claude when users leave training enabled, while Google’s Gemini clearly posts a disclaimer that human reviewers read select saved chats.

How to stop OpenAI from using your Chats

If you have a personal account (Free, Plus, or Pro), OpenAI enables model improvement by default. (Enterprise, Business, and Edu accounts have it turned off automatically.)

To stop your future conversations from being routed to human trainers:

Open ChatGPT in your browser or mobile app.

Click your profile icon in the bottom corner and select Settings.

Select Data Controls.

Find the toggle for "Improve the model for everyone" and switch it Off.

Final thoughts

Keep in mind, that the opt-out is not retroactive. It only protects new conversations moving forward; prompts that have already been de-identified and queued up within the system remain part of the training cycle.

Additionally, turning this off does not prevent automated scans for Terms of Service or safety violations.

Going forward, the golden rule of AI remains simple: if you wouldn't feel comfortable having a stranger read it, don't type it into a chatbot prompt.

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iOS 27 is now rolling out to compatible iPhones, and a quick glance at the official list tells you that there are a lot of them this year. The thing is, getting the most out of iOS 27 is a lot more than just being able to run the software, and the things you get from iOS 27 will all depend on what kind of hardware your iPhone has on offer.

iOS 27 itself works on devices as old as the iPhone 11, which was first released in 2019. The software has the same requirements as iOS 26, so if your phone runs that you should be able to install the latest iOS update without issue. Unfortunately, some of those older devices have to go without Apple Intelligence, while AI-friendly iPhones still won't gain access to everything the new Siri AI has to offer.

Here's a rundown on the requirements you need to run iOS 27 and all the different tiers of AI Apple now has to offer.

iOS 27

iOS 27 is available on a crazy 33 different iPhone models, dating as far back as the iPhone 11 and coming all the way up to the newly announced iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Better still, Apple is delivering the update to 30 of those devices today (September 14), letting you upgrade immediately. There are none of the delays of slow-burning rollouts that you'd normally get with Android phones. The only three exceptions are the newest iPhone models, which come running iOS 27 right out of the box.

The list of iOS 27 compatible phones is as follows:

• iPhone 18 Pro
• iPhone 18 Pro Max
• iPhone Duo
• iPhone 17
• iPhone Air
• iPhone 17 Pro
• iPhone 17 Pro Max
• iPhone 16
• iPhone 16 Plus
• iPhone 16 Pro
• iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 16e
• iPhone 15
• iPhone 15 Plus
• iPhone 15 Pro
• iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPhone 14
• iPhone 14 Plus
• iPhone 14 Pro
• iPhone 14 Pro Max
• iPhone 13
• iPhone 13 mini
• iPhone 13 Pro
• iPhone 13 Pro Max
• iPhone 12
• iPhone 12 mini
• iPhone 12 Pro
• iPhone 12 Pro Max
• iPhone 11
• iPhone 11 Pro
• iPhone 11 Pro Max
• iPhone SE (both 2020 and 2022 models)

Apple Intelligence

Those older iPhones may be able to support iOS 27, but that doesn't mean they are able to use Apple's AI suite — also known as Apple Intelligence. Apple likes to push all AI processing on devices where possible, and that means strict memory requirements. This means any phone that doesn't have at least 8GB of RAM can not run Apple's AI.

So far 15 phones can run Apple Intelligence, starting with iPhone 15 Pro:

• iPhone 15 Pro
• iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPhone 16
• iPhone 16 Plus
• iPhone 16 Pro
• iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 16e
• iPhone 17
• iPhone 17 Pro
• iPhone 17 Pro Max
• iPhone Air
• iPhone 17e
• iPhone 18 Pro
• iPhone 18 Pro Max
• iPhone Duo

All of those phones are capable of running Siri AI, as are iPads and MacBooks with an Apple M-series chip. However they aren't all able to access everything Siri AI has to offer.

Siri AI

The bulk of Siri AI's features are standard Apple Intelligence features. That means they're available to all iPhones with at least 8GB of RAM. However two of the promised Siri AI features run on Apple's "most powerful on-device model", known as AFM Core Advanced. This model needs at least 12GB of RAM to operate.

The specific features are Siri's Expressive Voices and the advanced dictation system. Currently only six iPhones have the hardware necessary to power them:

• iPhone 17 Pro
• iPhone 17 Pro Max
• iPhone 17 Air
• iPhone 18 Pro
• iPhone 18 Pro Max
• iPhone Duo

Other Apple devices that run the AFM Core Advanced include iPad Pro (2024 or later), iPad Air (2026 or later), MacBook Pro (2023 or later) and MacBook Air (2024 or later).

Siri AI isn't available on iPhones and iPads in the EU and China, over regulatory hurdles. While Apple hasn't spoken about the delay in a Chinese launch, it has made it repeatedly claimed that the European Union's Digital Markets Act is holding upSiri AI's launch in the region — evidently due to regulators not accepting "any of Apple’s proposed solutions to bring Siri AI to the EU while safely supporting other virtual assistants."

Like many Apple spats with the EU, it all comes down to the topic of safety and privacy. Apple believes having its rules in place promotes a safer environment, while the European Commission has reportedly disputed those claims.

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OpenAI has launched a new version of ChatGPT built specifically for people working in finance. ChatGPT for Financial Services is a specialized version of ChatGPT Work designed for financial institutions. It combines GPT-6 Astra with financial data, research tools and the ability to create everything from valuation models to client presentations.

And unlike using regular ChatGPT to ask a question about a stock or upload an earnings report, much of the financial information it needs is already built into the product.

Here's what ChatGPT for Financial Services does, who can use it and how to get started.

What is ChatGPT for Financial Services?

Think of it as ChatGPT rebuilt around the workflows of an investment banker or financial analyst. OpenAI developed the product with Morgan Stanley and Evercore, initially concentrating on investment banking and equity research.

It can research companies, analyze earnings, compare financial performance, build models and turn that work into documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

The big difference is the data that helped build it. The feature includes premium datasets from Daloopa, PitchBook, LSEG News and Crunchbase. These cover areas including financial statements, earnings transcripts, company fundamentals and private companies.

How to get access to ChatGPT for Financial Services

Here's the first thing to know before you go looking for it in your ChatGPT account: you can't simply switch it on.

ChatGPT for Financial Services is currently available to eligible financial institutions. Firms interested in using it need to contact OpenAI or their existing OpenAI account team. So, while you may see it in the news and want to try it, at least for now, it isn't something individual ChatGPT Free, Plus or Pro subscribers can sign up for independently.

ChatGPT for personal fiances is already available for individuals. This feature within ChatGPT Work offers administrators the ability to manage which employees and roles can use particular data connections, skills and apps.

It connects to your company's financial data

Alongside the financial datasets included with the product, OpenAI is working with providers including S&P Capital IQ, LSEG, MSCI, Dow Jones Factiva and Moody's so companies can use subscriptions they already pay for inside ChatGPT.

The idea is that your ChatGPT sign-in can recognize the financial data you're already entitled to access. There are also more than 50 connectors in OpenAI's broader ecosystem, including services such as Datasite, Box, Preqin, FactSet and Intapp.

Instead of bouncing between ChatGPT, financial databases and internal documents, analysts can potentially research across those sources from one workspace.

Start with a real financial analysis

Once the relevant data is available, you can give GPT-6 Astra a job rather than simply asking it a question.

For example, an analyst could ask ChatGPT to compare a company's performance across several quarters, examine earnings data or investigate how an adjusted EBITDA figure was calculated.

ChatGPT can trace figures through tables, financial documents and supporting notes and then use that information in its analysis.

Importantly, OpenAI says the product can provide granular citations that let users trace figures and claims back to specific tables and passages. Keep in mind, that doesn't eliminate the need to check AI-generated financial analysis, but it should make checking where a number came from considerably easier.

Turn your research into a spreadsheet or presentation

Research is only part of the workflow. ChatGPT for Financial Services can take its analysis and turn it into Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and PowerPoint presentations.

A firm's administrators can even upload approved templates and style guides. That means an analyst could potentially move from researching a company to producing a valuation model, research note or pitchbook without manually rebuilding everything in the firm's standard format.

For anyone who has spent hours transferring research into slides or spreadsheets, this may end up being one of the more useful parts of the product. In terms of safeguards, ChatGPT for Financial Services builds on ChatGPT Enterprise's existing security controls, including SAML SSO, SCIM provisioning and role-based access.

OpenAI says business data isn't used to train its models by default and is encrypted both at rest and in transit. Administrators can also control retention, export supported workspace logs for compliance purposes and create separate workspaces to maintain information barriers.

Bottom line

If you're wondering if you should use ChatGPT for Financial Services, for most ChatGPT users, the answers is not right now, because you can't. This is an enterprise product aimed at financial institutions rather than a new consumer feature.

Still, the more interesting part may be what it says about where ChatGPT is heading. This shows that OpenAI is moving closer to packaging its models with the specialized data, permissions, templates and workflows needed for a particular job.

For finance, that means GPT-6 Astra is being placed directly alongside the financial databases, company information and document formats bankers already use.

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I tend to find myself enraptured by the inspirational words of CEOs, the major business moves made by entrepreneurs and the surprising success stories that come from unsuspecting individuals.

There are so many lessons to take away from those people and the varied levels of prosperity they’ve attained in their professional lives. I’ve certainly injected some of them into my everyday life and molded them into what I do as a writer. And as someone who’s constantly delving into what it takes to truly flourish, I reverted to my usual chatbot companion to get its thoughts on the main roadblocks that successful people should abandon.

After I presented that question to ChatGPT, it kicked off its latest coaching session with this enlightening statement: Successful people often focus heavily on what to start doing. But just as important is figuring out what to stop doing once you've built momentum.

Afterward, ChatGPT highlighted 12 tips on the main things successful people should stop doing. After reviewing them, I made a mental note of seven of those winning habits and changed some of my well-worn habits.

ChatGPT’s advice on what successful people should consider quitting

Out of the 12 bits of practical wisdom ChatGPT provided me with in response to my prompt, here are the seven tips that stood out to me the most:

• Stop working just because you can: Being able to work 12 hours doesn't mean you should. Eventually, protecting your energy becomes as important as maximizing your output.
• Stop saying yes to everything: Success creates more opportunities—and more distractions. Saying yes to every request can leave little time for the work that actually matters.
• Stop trying to prove yourself: Constantly demonstrating that you're smart, capable, or successful can become an exhausting full-time job. Let your results speak for you.
• Stop optimizing everything: Successful people can become addicted to productivity hacks, perfect routines, and squeezing another 5% out of everything. Sometimes "good enough" is the most productive option.
• Stop comparing yourself to other successful people: Someone else's career, income, house, or accomplishments can make your own progress feel inadequate—even when you're doing exceptionally well.
• Stop neglecting your personal life until "later": There may never be a magical point when work stops demanding your attention. Relationships, hobbies, health, and downtime shouldn't be rewards you earn after succeeding.
• Stop holding onto what worked in the past: A strategy that helped you succeed may eventually become what holds you back. Success requires periodically questioning your own playbook.

How those pieces of advice altered my outlook on life for the better

With all those professional and personal improvement recommendations in mind, I slowly but surely began putting them into practice.

Instead of working past my allotted hours and opening my work laptop over the weekend like I used to, I made a habit of using Friday as my day of full work completion and that evening for idea generation, so my next two days could be devoted to physical and mental relaxation.

Not saying yes to everything was hard for me to start doing (since I have such a hard time saying no), but I eventually followed that rule by not outright saying no to requests and instead suggesting people who would be better suited to some of the opportunities asked of me.

Refraining from constantly trying to prove my worth through haughty conversations & pompous social media posts and letting my published pieces' viewer numbers speak for themselves instead soon became commonplace. Showing and proving without boasting became a habit well worth adopting, especially for someone whose work is public for the world to see and read.

Breaking my habit of constantly optimizing every facet of my life was a bit difficult at first, but I learned to apply it only to some things while using the “good enough” rule for other duties (my assorted exercise and stretching routines don’t demand perfection, after all).

I definitely quit comparing myself to the familiar folks and celebrities around my age on my social media timelines who seem to be winning at life every time they post something new—I had to remember that everyone has different degrees of success, and mine should offer a sense of fulfillment based on my personal goals.

While my job is demanding, I’ve learned to take the time to go outside more and mingle with strangers & loved ones alike. Not as a reward for my hectic work week, but as a regular part of my free-time endeavors that put me in a tranquil mental state.

And finally, I remembered to stop reverting to the same professional success that worked so well in the past. Instead, I observed them, looked for ways to adapt them to the ever-changing tides of my profession, and made the adjustments needed to possibly notch another win on my tech journalist belt.

In that aforementioned case, Babe Ruth's wise words about baseball certainly apply to anyone: "Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games."

Bottom line

ChatGPT can sometimes have a way with words, I must say. Like most self-help coaches and thriving professionals I’ve come across on TV, in books, and on podcasts, OpenAI’s chatbot laid out a myriad of helpful pieces of advice that pushed me to change some of my habits on the never-ending road to success.

Spending the rest of the precious time I have on this Earth with the seven professional and personal life tips ChatGPT supplied me with turned out to be a success in and of itself.

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You might have noticed: suddenly, everyone is talking about AI killing us.

The latest wave of anxiety started with Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old AI researcher who spent three years working on pretraining at OpenAI and Anthropic. On Tuesday, he resigned from Anthropic, and the AI industry altogether, with a warning that quickly went viral. He wrote on X, that the companies building the world's most powerful AI systems are "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives." Interestingly, his colleagues, still at the company didn't disagree.

In fact, other Anthropic researchers publicly backed him. Evan Hubinger, who leads alignment research at the company, said he believes there's a greater than 10% chance AI could cause human extinction within the next decade. Samuel Marks, another Anthropic safety researcher, said the people closest to the technology tend to become more concerned as they gain seniority.

Coxon's warning has now been viewed 164.8 million views at the time of writing, it landed in national headlines and helped drag a debate that has simmered inside AI labs for years into the mainstream.

So what exactly are these researchers afraid of?

As someone who practically lives online following the news, I've seen many questions from people all over the world wondering what this means. My own mother texted me asking, "Why would that researcher say that?" So many chatbot users can't imagine a "chatbot killing us." But AI assistants aren't really the problem here.

The scientists publishing research on existential risk are not, for the most part, losing sleep over self-aware androids. They're worried about code, incentives and what happens when AI systems become capable enough to get autonomy to operate inside the digital and physical infrastructure civilization depends on.

In Silicon Valley, the shorthand for these discussions is "p(doom)," someone's estimated probability that advanced AI ultimately causes a catastrophe severe enough to threaten human survival.

The estimates range wildly, and so does the credibility researchers assign to the whole question.

Key takeaways :

• It isn't about consciousness. An AI doesn't have to "wake up" or hate humanity to become dangerous. The concern is what happens when highly capable systems get goals, autonomy and access to powerful tools.
• There are concrete threat vectors. Researchers have focused on AI lowering barriers to biological weapons, dramatically scaling cyberattacks and — in the most extreme case — humans losing control of sufficiently capable autonomous systems.
• Safety evaluations are already catching deceptive behavior. Models have been observed taking shortcuts, acting differently when they appear to know they're under evaluation and exploiting weaknesses in testing environments.
• AI is helping build AI. OpenAI and Anthropic are already experimenting with AI systems that conduct parts of AI research, raising hard questions about how humans supervise the process if machines are doing more of the work.
• There is real pushback. Critics argue that extinction scenarios depend on enormous assumptions about future capabilities and can distract from problems happening right now — scams, disinformation, job displacement, privacy erosion.

Why intent doesn't matter

The biggest misconception is that an AI system needs to be malicious to cause catastrophic damage. Imagine giving an extremely capable autonomous system a broad environmental goal without successfully specifying everything humans actually value along the way. The danger isn't that the system turns evil, but that it gets extremely good at accomplishing the wrong interpretation of what it was told to do.

That is central to "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies," one of the most uncompromising recent books on AI risk, written by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares, both longtime researchers at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Their argument: humanity is nowhere close to knowing how to reliably control a superhuman intelligence, and building one before solving that problem could be fatal. Plenty of AI researchers dispute both the assumptions and the conclusion.

The three ways things could break

When researchers talk about catastrophic AI risk, a few mechanisms keep coming up.

1. AI makes dangerous biology easier

Creating a novel pathogen right now requires deep expertise, specialized equipment and access to physical materials. Those barriers are real and important.
The worry is that capable AI could thin some of them out. AI is already used in protein structure prediction and molecular design. The dangerous extrapolation: future systems might also walk users through progressively complicated stages of designing or producing harmful biological agents.

Nobody's saying you can ask ChatGPT to manufacture a pandemic. There are enormous physical-world constraints like acquiring biological materials, successfully synthesizing them, working with them safely. Gene synthesis companies screen orders for potentially dangerous sequences.

But biological capabilities have become significant enough that frontier AI companies specifically evaluate new models for their ability to assist with biological and chemical threats.

AI could independently invent a pathogen, but giving a dangerous human those capabilities that used to require years of specialized training could be just as easy.

2. AI scales cyberattacks

Cybersecurity is a more immediate pathway because AI already operates in the environment being attacked: computers.

Today's AI coding agents can inspect repositories, execute commands, use tools and spot software bugs. The same broad capabilities that make them valuable to developers could make future versions valuable to attackers.

The nightmare scenario isn't one superintelligence simultaneously shutting down every power station. It's actually scale. Autonomous systems scanning vast numbers of targets, identifying vulnerable software, attempting exploitation, adapting on failure and moving to the next machine and at speeds no human team could match.

Critical infrastructure is especially concerning. Power grids, financial networks and communications systems run on interconnected software. An AI wouldn't need a robot body to cause physical damage if the computer it compromises already controls something physical.

3. We lose control of autonomous systems

This is the most speculative scenario, but it's the one at the center of the classic AI extinction argument. Modern AI models learn complex behavior through training. Researchers can test them, monitor their outputs and increasingly probe aspects of their internal representations. What they can't do is inspect billions of parameters and just read a clear explanation of what a model has learned or how it will behave in every new situation.

A chatbot producing a bad answer is one kind of problem. An agent that can execute code, spend money, communicate with other systems and operate over hours or days is a different one.

In the extreme version, similar to the the scenario Yudkowsky and Soares lay out, a future superhuman system could become capable enough to anticipate attempts to shut it down, obtain resources on its own and make itself difficult to turn off. To be clear, no current AI system has demonstrated that chain of capabilities in the wild. But researchers are already looking for pieces of it.

What labs are seeing right now

Today's models haven't staged a rebellion. But controlled safety evaluations have produced behaviors that would be alarming if they showed up in far more capable autonomous systems.

Researchers have tested whether models behave differently when they seem to know they're being evaluated. Other experiments have examined whether models exploit loopholes, misrepresent whether a task was completed or pursue objectives in ways their designers didn't intend.

Anthropic has also studied what it calls "sleeper agents": models deliberately trained to act normally until a specific trigger activates unwanted behavior. Standard safety-training techniques like reinforcement learning, supervised fine-tuning, adversarial training, didn't reliably remove those hidden behaviors. In the largest models, adversarial training actually made the deception harder to detect.

None of that proves today's models are secretly plotting an escape. Models are trained to predict and generate useful outputs, and weird behavior in artificial test environments can have mundane explanations. A model gaming a poorly designed benchmark isn't evidence of a survival instinct.

But these experiments expose how hard it is to guarantee a complex model's behavior once the circumstances change. If future models get dramatically more capable and dramatically more autonomy, even small alignment failures could compound.

Losing human oversight might not happen by accident

Humans might hand over the work deliberately. OpenAI says it has already reached an internal milestone with a system it calls an "automated research intern" that's capable of carrying out well-defined research tasks that would take a skilled human researcher several days. Its next target: a fully automated AI researcher by March 2028.

Anthropic is working in the same territory. In research published in August, the company had Claude autonomously develop training methods to reduce problems including deception, sycophancy and jailbreaks. Its best automated approaches outperformed experienced human researchers on the benchmarks being tested, closing 85 percent of the safety gap on deception, compared with 20 percent for the human team.

So yes, we are seeing AI automate parts of the work of building AI itself. That could set up a feedback loop: a more capable model helps researchers build an even more capable model, which automates more of the research required for the next generation. Taken far enough, you arrive at what's called recursive self-improvement.

The optimistic version accelerates scientific progress enormously. The frightening version is that AI research eventually moves faster than humans can follow.

Kelsey Piper recently argued in "The Argument" that framing this as "losing control" is misleading. Frontier labs aren't planning to lose control in one dramatic moment. They're deliberately automating more and more of AI development, essentially faster progress and, necessarily, less human oversight.

Picture hundreds or thousands of AI agents simultaneously running experiments, modifying code and analyzing the next generation of models. Human researchers might still approve major decisions. But they'd increasingly be reviewing summaries of AI-conducted work, potentially summaries written by AI about experiments run by other AI systems.

At some point, the bottleneck is human attention. And that's where the argument behind "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" clicks into place.

Why the concern is going mainstream

This debate left the AI safety journals a while ago. "The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist," directed by Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell, approaches many of these same questions from inside the AI boom. The documentary features roughly 40 on-camera interviews, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis.

What makes the film useful is that some of the smartest people building this technology see it as potentially transformative for science and medicine. Others worry we're building it faster than we can figure out how to control it. Sometimes those are the same people.

There's also a competitive problem. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and others are racing to build more capable models, and governments increasingly view advanced AI as strategically important. If one company believes that pausing for extensive safety testing means losing ground to a competitor, caution gets expensive.

It's one reason "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" chose the title it did. Yudkowsky and Soares aren't just arguing that one reckless company could create a dangerous product. They're arguing that a race among multiple companies and countries could make restraint extraordinarily difficult even when individual participants see the danger.

The counterargument

Not everyone in computer science buys any of this. One objection: there's an enormous gap between intelligence on a screen and power in the physical world. An AI might produce brilliant manufacturing instructions, but software doesn't automatically obtain raw materials, build machinery or evade law enforcement.

Another: intelligence isn't the same thing as agency. A model being good at solving problems doesn't give it desires, a survival instinct or a drive to accumulate power. Critics argue that doomsday scenarios quietly smuggle human motivations into software and then treat those projections as inevitable.

And then there's opportunity cost. AI is already causing problems that don't require speculation about superintelligence. Deepfakes fuel fraud. AI amplifies misinformation. People are already watching capable models reshape their industries. Critics of the extinction-risk movement argue that fixating on hypothetical future catastrophe pulls attention from damage happening right now.

That criticism has legs, but the two categories don't cancel each other out. We put smoke detectors in buildings even though most buildings never catch fire. The question isn't whether catastrophe is guaranteed. It's whether the probability times the potential damage is large enough to justify precautions.

What it all means

The real issue here is nobody knows. Nobody. Not even the people building AI know.

Not a single person knows whether AI will ever become capable enough to pose an existential threat. The most extreme predictions depend on assumptions about systems that don't exist yet, and forecasts about their capabilities, arrival timeline and controllability remain deeply contested.

Here's what I shared on my Substack — and whether or not you agree with me, I'd love for you to share your thoughts in the comments — humans can't be outsmarted. If we ask which is a greater sign of intelligence: reasoning or creativity? And if the answer is what I think it is, I have hope.

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I make it a habit of examining every part of my debit and credit card expenses, which entails constantly being paranoid and opening my banking apps every hour.

By the time every month wraps up, I take note of all the recurring costs that hit me. The recent increases in prices for streaming service subscriptions have caused me to take a step back and ask myself, “Do I really need to stay on my current plan? Or should I just move over to a cheaper one?” I figured I’d step on over to ChatGPT and see if it could help me break down the intricacies of my financial inner thoughts and lay out some answers on how I should proceed.

Not only did I ask ChatGPT to drum up a list of inquiries I could present to it that could help me and anyone else save a few bucks, but I also used its combined feedback and my own research to make some beneficial financial decisions.

Here are the seven best prompts that turn ChatGPT into your expert spending detective. One of them certainly accomplished that on my end, as it inspired me to cut three of my monthly subscription costs.

Prompts meant to help you improve your spending habits

With different approaches to lessening the monthly hits to your bank account, these ChatGPT-generated prompts could help you achieve that goal:

• The Subscription Killer: Here is a list of everything I pay for each month: [paste subscriptions and recurring expenses]. Find anything I could cancel, downgrade, replace with a cheaper alternative, share, negotiate, or pay for less frequently. Estimate my monthly and annual savings for each recommendation. Prioritize changes that would have little or no impact on my quality of life.
• The Money Leak Finder: I want to save as much money as reasonably possible every month without making my life miserable. Here are my monthly expenses: [paste expenses]. Analyze them like a ruthless money-saving expert. Identify the 10 biggest opportunities to cut spending, rank them by how much I could realistically save, and separate easy wins from changes that would require more sacrifice. Don't give me generic advice like ‘spend less.’ Give me specific actions I can take this month.
• The $500 Challenge: Help me find a realistic way to save an extra $500 this month. Analyze these expenses [paste expenses] and create a specific 30-day money-saving challenge. Break the $500 goal into individual actions, tell me exactly how much each action could save, and prioritize the easiest wins. I don't want to earn extra money—I want to save money I would otherwise spend.
• The Grocery Bill Cutter: I want to reduce my grocery spending without eating worse. Here is what I typically buy and spend: [paste grocery list/budget]. Find the biggest sources of unnecessary spending and create a cheaper shopping strategy. Suggest specific substitutions, cheaper meal ideas, bulk-buy opportunities, and things I should stop buying. Give me an estimated monthly savings target.
• The Cheaper Alternative Finder: I'm going to paste a list of things I regularly spend money on. For each one, find a cheaper way to get essentially the same benefit. Consider free alternatives, cheaper brands, memberships I already have, library resources, used/refurbished options, DIY solutions, and services I may already have access to. Don't recommend inferior alternatives just because they're cheaper. Rank your recommendations by the combination of savings and convenience.
• The Spending Interrogator: Before I buy anything that isn't essential, I want you to challenge the purchase. Whenever I give you an item and its price, ask me the questions that will determine whether I actually need it. Calculate the opportunity cost of buying it, suggest cheaper alternatives if appropriate, and tell me what I could save if I don't buy it. Be honest and skeptical rather than encouraging me to make the purchase.
• The Monthly Savings Autopilot: I want to make saving money as automatic as possible. Based on my monthly income of [amount], fixed expenses of [amount], variable expenses of [amount], debts of [amount], and current savings of [amount], design a simple monthly system that maximizes how much I can save. Tell me what to automate, which expenses to put limits on, how much I should set aside each payday, and what spending categories I should monitor. Make the system realistic enough that I can actually stick with it.

Using one of those prompts to help me tackle my monthly subscriptions

I made great use of “The Subscription Killer” prompt to figure out what subscriptions of mine needed a lower, cheaper tier and which ones could be canceled completely. Here are the recurring expenses I told ChatGPT about:

• Patreon - $12
• HBO Max - $18.49
• Netflix - $21.76
• Hulu & Disney+ - $76
• Crunchyroll - $10.88
• Experian - $27.21

ChatGPT proceeded to lay out its recommendations for which streaming services I should consider downgrading or canceling altogether. The three that made me seriously consider taking either of those options were Netflix, Crunchyroll and Experian. The chatbot told me to contemplate turning my Standard Netflix subscription to the Standard one with ads, changing my monthly Crunchyroll subscription into the annual Fan version and switching to Experian’s free subscription model.

For Netflix, I did some research to see what the common consensus was about the rate of ads (and level of annoyance) that come with Netflix's cheaper $8.99 (plus tax) plan. The Streamable noted that Netflix has the best ad experience of all the streaming services, plus What’s On Netflix highlighted all the content that’s unavailable on the ad-supported subscription tier. Since I had 0 interest in all of the films and shows from that aforementioned list and was willing to sit through a few commercials to enjoy Netflix’s other content offerings, I decided to adopt the streaming service’s Standard with ads plan to save me a few extra dollars every month.

As for Crunchyroll, I took it up on its offer of saving an extra 16% on its yearly Fan subscription and leaving its monthly version of that tier behind. And finally, I logged into my Experian account to change my Creditworks Premium subscription plan to the free option—since I have a Chase Bank account that gives me access to an additional free credit score report, I figured it’d make sense for me to have access to both Experian and Chase’s credit summary benefits without having to pay a single dime.

The takeaway

At the end of my money-saving session with ChatGPT, I knocked down my combined monthly expense for all three subscriptions from $59.85 to $18.12. Downgrading my Netflix tier from $19.99+ a month to $8.99+ a month, going from paying Crunchyroll $9.99+ every month to $8.33+ every month with a more comfortable annual fee and adopting Experian’s free subscription model ended up being the most cost-effective decisions I’ve made in a while.

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The endless curiosity of my five-year-old is often hard to manage. Combined with his nonstop energy, I often feel like I can't keep up when it comes to toys and activities that fuel his eagerness to move and learn.

So when we discovered the Dex Language-Discovery Camera, I quickly noticed that it offered the perfect mix of both learning and activity that other toys often lack. The moment it was unboxed, my son was off into the backyard taking pictures of anything he could find, from rocks and tree branches to frogs and birds.

So much more than a camera, the Dex Language-Discovery Camera combines support to help develop my son's language as well. Using AI, the camera audibly says the name of the image he took and asks him to repeat it. The AI listens to be sure it's said correctly.

A game-changer for my shy kid

There's a lot of educational technology available for young kids, but from my experience, the goal is usually to convince them to sit still and stare at a screen long enough to learn something. That doesn't work for my son who has both autism and ADHD. In other words, he never stops moving.

He's energetic, intensely curious and navigating speech delays alongside neurodivergence. Typical handheld learning apps often miss the mark because they either demand extended, stationary focus or pull him into a digital loop of taps, animations and flashing lights.

Dex does almost the opposite. It uses technology as an excuse to go investigate the real world, which is exactly what he can't get enough of, and what I want him to do. Getting his energy out is almost always my goal. Throw in learning, and I'm already sold.

After using the Dex camera everywhere from our backyard to the beach and grocery store, I've come to believe this might just be the perfect toy.

What is the Dex camera?

Dex is a language-learning camera designed primarily for kids ages 3 to 8. The concept is wonderfully simple: point the camera at something, take a picture and let Dex figure out what you're looking at.

Rather than simply displaying a word on a screen, Dex says the word aloud in the language your child is learning and builds a short lesson around the object.

That's important because the camera itself isn't really the destination. The thing on the other side of the camera is.

Dex currently supports 16 languages and more than 30 dialects, and parents can use the companion app to manage the experience. There are also games and activities beyond the main camera mode, which gives kids something else to do once the novelty of photographing everything in the house inevitably wears off. My older kids (9 and 12) had a blast changing the language and learning a few words, too.

Turning outdoor energy into real-world vocabulary

My son does not sit still for long, and standard learning apps rarely match his pace. But give him a tool that pairs with his natural curiosity, and he will happily roam.

In our backyard, Dex became his companion. The camera is surprisingly sturdy, yet easily fit into his hand. It comes with a neck strap so my son could carry it that way as he looked for his next item to capture. He spent entire afternoons pacing through the grass, aiming the lens at frogs, tree branches, rocks and crawling bugs. It was so fun to watch him explore, and get a much-needed rest from entertaining him myself.

That's another great aspect of the camera: He can play with it by himself or enjoy it with his siblings. The difference was that he controlled the lesson.

There wasn't an adult standing beside him holding up a flashcard and asking, "What's this?" He decided what interested him, photographed it and immediately heard Dex identify it and talk about it. For a child working through a speech delay, I found that surprisingly powerful.

There's no awkward pause while an adult waits for the "right" answer and no sense that he's being tested. He can hear the pronunciation, listen to the context and repeat it if and when he wants to.

Learning became a byproduct of exploring rather than the activity we'd asked him to sit down and complete.

Dex became our scavenger hunt everywhere

At the beach, Dex gave my son a mission. Instead of simply carrying another toy around, he started examining the environment for things worth photographing: sand, shells and whatever else washed up around us.

Even grocery shopping became more interesting. Anyone who has taken an active five-year-old through a supermarket knows how quickly a routine errand can unravel. Normally, the easiest solution is also the one many parents are trying to avoid: hand over a phone.

Dex gave us another option as he took images of produce, cereal boxes and dairy cartons. Instead of passively watching something while I shopped, he was looking around the store for his next subject.

I wouldn't pretend this magically transforms every Target run into an educational wonderland. He's still five. But it gave him something purposeful to do that didn't involve disappearing into YouTube. And that's a win I'll take.

There are a few catches

One of Dex's smartest ideas is that object recognition is only the beginning of the interaction. It also saves discoveries as badge-like stickers that fill with color as kids practice saying the words. My son could return to things he'd already found rather than having every interaction disappear as soon as he took another picture.

I expected Dex to appeal to my youngest. I didn't expect my older kids to keep asking to play with it, too. Once they realized they could switch languages, Spanish turned ordinary household objects into a family guessing game. Suddenly everyone wanted to point Dex at something and hear what it was called in a new language.

That gave me another perspective on the recommended age range. The design is clearly aimed at younger children, but the underlying trick — point a camera at practically anything and hear about it in another language — doesn't suddenly become boring when a child turns nine.

It's not completely screen-free — and that's worth saying. Calling Dex "screen-free" would be misleading. There's a screen right on the device. But the difference here is that the screen is asking the child to be present and active.

A tablet typically pulls attention inward: sit here, watch this, tap this. Dex repeatedly pushes attention outward: find something, photograph it, listen, say it and go find something else.

For parents worried about screen time, I think that's a more useful distinction than simply counting whether a device technically contains a display. My son can spend 30 minutes using Dex and spend much of that time looking at grass, bugs, food and the world around him rather than the display itself.

It's also worth keeping in mind that the AI isn't always perfect. You may notice mistakes occasionally, but we did not run into anything other than an occasional blurry picture when my son moved too fast.

There's also a companion app involved, and some features and activities depend on Dex's broader software ecosystem rather than the camera operating as a completely standalone toy. Depending on the plan you choose, there can also be an ongoing subscription cost. It is still fully functional without the subscription cost, so don't let that be a deal breaker.

And like any connected kids' gadget, it's another device that has to be charged, configured and occasionally troubleshot. But the battery life is surprisingly solid. Even after a backyard adventure and grocery store run, it sill had plenty of juice for afternoon play.

The takeaway

This toy is so much more than a toy, it's a learning and language developement tool. After using the Dex camera, my son looks more closely at things and asks questions. When he finds something strange in the grass, he wants to know what it's called. The technology has become a bridge between his curiosity and the language surrounding it.

That's particularly meaningful for a child who doesn't necessarily learn best by sitting at a table or staring at an educational app. It's a great way to make language and discovery a part of everyday play. For my five-year-old, that's exactly what happened.

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I consider myself a movie aficionado.

I may pop up at my local Alamo Drafthouse Cinema for the latest blockbuster superhero movie, martial-arts-filled epic and sci-fi adventure like the average moviegoer. But my movie-watching palette is a lot more expansive than that — I also enjoy a cinematic experience attached to a good psychological drama, crime thriller or dark comedy. I may turn my brain off now and then when I sit in front of the big and little screen, but I also turn it on when it’s time to spend a few hours sitting through some quality, thought-provoking movies.

I got tired of sifting through my streaming service queues one day and had the bright idea of building a watchlist of films that stick to a specific theme. Asking AI for the best movies to watch in a particular genre is easy enough — I wanted to truly challenge ChatGPT and Gemini’s movie knowledge and get them to recommend films based on an oddly specific theme.

Color me impressed after this experiment came to a close — both chatbots listed a bunch of critically-acclaimed and fan-favorite films that fulfilled exactly what I was looking for.

ChatGPT and Gemini made me discover movies I felt guilty for not seeing beforehand

So the theme I told both chatbots about to suggest the best movies they could find is as follows: "Build a movie marathon around the following theme and make sure to tell me what streaming services I can use to watch each film: One Terrible Decision Ruined Everything."

For some reason, I was in the mood to watch the sort of movies that show a person or group dealing with the ramifications of a decision that turns their life upside down. I had a feeling there were a bunch of films that fit that theme perfectly and could provide me with the sort of nail-biting viewing experience I had been craving as of late.

ChatGPT’s explanation of my themed movie watchlist spoke to my soul: This theme is perfect for a slow-burn-to-total-disaster marathon: every movie starts with someone making a choice that seems understandable, tempting, or even smart — and then spends the rest of its runtime proving that it absolutely was not.

Here are the four films ChatGPT brought to my attention and the accompanying descriptions that intrigued me:

• Fargo → “Surely this can't get THAT bad.” Jerry's initial scheme is terrible, but it's still relatively contained. Then everything spirals.
• A Simple Plan → “Just take the money.” This might be the purest example of the entire theme. Finding $4 million sounds like incredible luck. The movie asks what happens when you make the decision to keep it.
• Nightcrawler → “I'm willing to do whatever it takes.” Unlike some of the others, Lou isn't really tricked into making his terrible decisions. He keeps choosing them because they work. That's what makes this one so uncomfortable.
• Uncut Gems → “One more bet.” Put this near the end because it's basically two hours of watching a man repeatedly encounter opportunities to stop destroying his life — and refusing every single one.

Gemini offered up some equally compelling film choices that stuck close to my theme. Here are the three films and apt descriptions that got me excited to see them all in action:

• Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Tone: Gritty family tragedy / Heist gone wrong. The stakes become deeply personal. You see the fallout of a single bad decision split a family apart in real time, raising the emotional tension.
• Parasite. Tone: Social satire turning into a claustrophobic thriller. The midpoint twist — triggered directly by the decision to push their luck—shifts the marathon from a crime narrative into pure panic.
• Requiem for a Dream: Tone: Psychological drama / Tragic downward spiral. A harrowing, definitive conclusion to the theme. It leaves no room for recovery after a series of small, ill-advised choices snowball into complete destruction.

After my usual extensive Rotten Tomatoes research session on each film, I left with a whole slate of new movies to watch across Tubi, Pluto TV, Sling TV, The Roku Channel and YouTube. The fact that I could watch the majority of these films for free was the icing on top of a daily solo watch party that delivered the sort of cinematic nail-biting thrills I was searching high and low for.

I especially enjoyed Nightcrawler’s deep dive into the psyche of a man who wants success by any means, Uncut Gems’ presentation of the huge downsides of constantly betting big and Parasite’s showcase of the shades of grey present among its eccentric cast.

7 other movie themes I’ll play around with in the near future

Both chatbots did a great job of highlighting the right films for my thematic approach. So much so that I’m very much looking forward to testing out the following movie themes with ChatGPT and Gemini to see which films they push me toward next:

• "The Hero Has Had Enough"
• "The Villain Was Kind of Right"
• "The Guy Who Should Have Stayed Home"
• "People Are Trapped Somewhere and Things Get Worse"
• "The Movie Takes Place Over One Absolutely Insane Day"
• "The Opening 10 Minutes Promise Absolute Chaos"

The takeaway

In my search for movies I hadn’t seen before, sticking to a particular theme and requesting AI’s assistance in helping me find the appropriate films and streaming services that house them ended up being a fulfilling experience.

I’ve gotten used to using chatbots as my digital entertainment curators, so I was confident that they’d lead me to some quality cinema that was chock-full of interesting premises that resulted in the slow unraveling of its characters. I’m going to keep doing this with all sorts of cinematic themes to see where my movie-recommending chatbots take me next.

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Among the big new features Apple revealed with the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 were a few that pricked the ears of those with privacy concerns. Apple's Audio Intelligence is a suite of AI-powered features that use the Apple Watch to listen in on what's happening around you, so that Siri can provide more proactive advice, as well as help you remember what it was you just heard.

The most controversial of these features were Siri Recap, which allows your watch to listen in on conversations you have throughout the day, and uses AI to take notes and generate summaries, and Live Rewind, which lets you go back 15 seconds and view a transcript of what was just said.

The idea behind this is that Apple can "jog your memory" on events from your day, and make sure you can stay present in the moment. Naturally there are a lot of people who aren't happy about the idea that someone's Apple Watch could be listening in on conversations without warning.

Apple has anticipated this, and when we spoke to John Ternus, the new Apple CEO, and Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, they revealed their approach to Recap's privacy at length.

"Whenever we do anything, we always do it with an eye towards privacy and security," Ternus said. "It's something we take very seriously and approach very thoughtfully.

On the subject of Siri Recap, Ternus pointed out that it's been possible to record audio and create transcripts of what people have said for a while — both on smartwatches and phones.

Ternus makes it clear that recap does not produce a recording or a transcript, with Jozwiak adding that Apple can't access what doesn't exist. "If we don't have a recording, it means no one else has the recording. It can't get hacked. It can't get delivered to somebody."

It sounds unrealistic, but Jozwiak does confirm that Apple had to develop a whole new chip to make Recap possible in this manner. In the process, he sees it as a feature that allows people to concentrate on what they're doing, while being able to generate "higher level notes" that aren't indiscriminately documenting whatever sensitive information is being said.

"We wanted to do this in a way that people feel comfortable using it, said Ternus. "And people around the user feel comfortable about its existence."

Siri Recap's privacy features

Apple has also posted a sizable explainer discussing all the different privacy features Recap incorporates.

The big privacy feature here is that any audio that the Watch hears is sent to Apple's Secure Enclave on the watch itself or your paired iPhone. Apple claims that it can't be accessed by the user, Apple, apps or even the operating system itself.

The audio also isn't recorded or stored, though the processed data is summarized and formatted by Apple's Private Cloud Compute. Apparently this involves condensed versions of the original conversation that are less than half their length, reducing the contents to the core, rather than a full-length transcript.

While the Private Cloud Compute data is not accessible by Apple or anyone else, it does still mean your data is being processed on the cloud rather than just on your device. Which may be too risky for some of you to agree with.

Other features include a lack of speaker attribution, which means nobody will be directly quoted or attributed to. Siri is also going to censor what it hears, and will automatically omit anything it deems harmful or sensitive. Apple says this includes language promoting self-harm, hate speech, financial data, authentication and personally identifying data and "government-assigned identifiers." So it won't be making a record of your social security number.

Summaries are automatically deleted after seven days unless you save them to the Siri app. Like all Siri data, those saved summaries can then be deleted from all synced devices at any time — though you can also export them to other apps, including Apple Notes. Syncing is also encrypted and done via iCloud, meaning only your own trusted devices can access those summaries.

Recaps aren't running all the time, and you do need to opt in to actually set them up. How they record depends on you, with Apple promising you can set up a schedule or manually toggle it on and off in the Control Center.

Because it's an AI feature, Apple has the usual caveat explaining that the summaries aren't going to be 100% accurate all the time. That doesn't fill me with a whole lot of confidence, especially after the fiasco with Apple News summaries that had to be recalled from iOS.

Live Rewind

If you've ever been pulled in two directions at once, you've inevitably had to ask "what did you just say?" to someone. Live Rewind is meant to help jog your short-short-term memory, by displaying a text snippet of the last 15 seconds of conversation when you double-press the Digital Crown on your Apple Watch.

To address privacy concerns around this feature, Apple says that these text snippets "disappear permanently from your Apple Watch approximately 30 seconds after the Apple Watch display dims," unless you purposely save them.

This doesn't fix everything

Apple suggests that people "be mindful" of everyone around them, especially if there are sensitive conversations happening. Though that may be giving people too much credit.

There are plenty of people out there that are considerate of other people's thoughts and opinions, but there are also plenty who aren't. They either forget recap is running, or straight up do not care that other people may not like it.

Admittedly, both Ternus and Jozwiak have a point: there are features that offer this sort of thing without any emphasis on privacy. Then again, it is more likely that people take issue with the implied always-listening approach Recap takes. I personally feel it would make a lot more sense to restrict it to manual control.

Whichever way you look at it, though, I guess it's still a better option than seeing people pull out their phones to video every little unusual thing they come across.

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To say that games have impacted my life in a major way would be the biggest understatement ever.

Discovering video games at a young age helped me find one of my favorite pastimes, led me to become a journalist and helped me interact with gaming & entertainment industry personalities I thought I’d never meet. For this year’s installment of National Video Games Day (a holiday meant to honor the legendary history, evolution and cultural impact of interactive media), I wanted to try something fun that combined my love for gaming and my newfound appreciation for AI.

I came to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity with a simple request: “Give me your ranking of the 10 most influential video games of all time.” And after cataloging all their results, I came away with two thoughts: all four chatbots recognize the major trendsetters of the video game industry and two of them couldn’t agree on which game deserved to take the No. 1 spot.

Here’s what each chatbot delivered in response to my inquiry and even my own ranking of the 10 most influential video games of all time.

Where these four chatbots agreed and disagreed

All four chatbots wasted little time in proving their video game knowledge is stronger than I expected when they presented me with their personal ranking of the 10 most influential video games ever made:

• ChatGPT: Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom, The Legend of Zelda, Grand Theft Auto III, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, Pong, Half-Life, and Wii Sports.
• Gemini: Pong, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Super Mario 64, Grand Theft Auto III, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, and Dark Souls.
• Claude: Doom, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, The Legend of Zelda, Half-Life, Pong, Street Fighter II, and Grand Theft Auto III.
• Perplexity: Pong, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom, The Legend of Zelda, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Super Mario 64, Grand Theft Auto III, World of Warcraft, and Minecraft.

What impressed me about ChatGPT’s acknowledgement of Super Mario Bros. as the most influential video game of all time was the factual reasons it used to back up its choice.

The chatbot noted that it practically revived the home-console gaming market after the crash of 1983, established the traditional conventions for 2D platformers that are still around to this day, produced arguably the most recognizable video game character of all time, helped cement the idea that gaming could deliver deeper experiences at home and showcased a textbook example of level design that teaches players what to do through gameplay.

Claude’s rationale for choosing Doom is as follows: Defined the FPS genre, pioneered shareware distribution, and its modding scene (WAD files) kickstarted the entire user-generated-content movement in gaming.

I also found it pretty wild how ChatGPT and Claude’s No. 1 picks were completely different from each other, while Gemini and Perplexity emerged with the same game for the top spot on their respective lists. Here’s the reasoning Gemini and Perplexity brought up to explain their decision to place Pong in the No. 1 position:

• Gemini: The Breakthrough: Proved commercial viability. Why It’s Essential: While not technically the first video game, Pong was the spark that established video games as a commercial industry. It proved that people would pay real money to play interactive digital games, launching arcade culture and home console gaming simultaneously.
• Perplexity: The essential commercial breakthrough. Pong made the video game legible to a mass public: two controls, one immediate competitive idea, and an arcade format that helped establish games as a viable entertainment business. Its simplicity became a template for accessible design.

Alongside ChatGPT’s ranked selections for its most influential games, it also brought up a bunch of games it deemed “painful omissions” that would make its top 20 list if permitted to do so.

Those 10 other games included Spacewar!, Pac-Man, Street Fighter II, Pokémon Red/Blue, Final Fantasy VII, The Sims, Counter-Strike, Dark Souls, Fortnite and The Last of Us. Claude also had two honorable mentions of its own: Fortnite and EVE Online.

As for my ranking of the 10 most influential video games of all time, I went with Pong (it seems like I agree with Gemini and Perplexity), Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, The Legend of Zelda, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Doom, Virtua Fighter, Half-Life and Grand Theft Auto III.

Final thoughts

I have to hand it to all four chatbots: they mentioned a strong selection of games that anyone who’s immersed in the hobby would mention on their list of the most influential titles in the still-thriving entertainment genre. Super Mario Bros., Pong and Doom all earned top billing among all four chatbots — all three games had a major impact on the gaming industry that captured millions of gamers’ attention and inspired plenty of iconic titles in their wake.

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I have a confession: when it comes to long, technical documents like manuals or white papers, I'm probably not reading every word. Don't get me wrong, I do care about the information in the documents and really need to know about my insurance policies and subscription terms, but I simply don't have the time to bury myself in hours of reading.

It's no secret that ChatGPT can summarize long documents, but recently I started using it differently. Instead of asking the chatbot to tell me what a document says, I ask it to extract the same information from multiple documents first — and only then compare them.

This is a small change but it makes ChatGPT infinitely more helpful for getting down to the fine print. I've been doing it recently and and there's one extra instruction I now add that makes the results much easier to trust.

Don't ask ChatGPT which option is better

My first instinct used to be uploading two documents and asking something like:

"Which of these is better?"

That's easy, but it's also giving ChatGPT far too much freedom. "Better" could mean cheaper, more comprehensive, more flexible or whatever the model decides matters most. Now, I make chatGPT do the boring work for me.

I upload both PDFs and use this prompt: Read both documents independently before comparing them.

For each document, extract the total cost, deductibles or additional charges, coverage or services included, exclusions, cancellation terms, renewal terms and any conditions that could significantly increase what I pay.

Cite the page number for every detail you extract. If something isn't explicitly stated in the document, write "Not found" rather than inferring or guessing.

Once you've completed the extraction, create a side-by-side comparison table showing the differences between the two documents.

Finally, identify five differences or unclear terms I should investigate before making a decision. Do not tell me which option to choose.

The overlooked trick is 'extract first, compare second'

With my prompt, I'm not asking ChatGPT to make the decision for me. I'm asking it to make the information easier for me to evaluate.

When you ask ChatGPT to summarize two long documents and compare them simultaneously, you're essentially asking it to decide what's important as it goes.

Instead, this prompt breaks the job into stages. First, ChatGPT has to examine each document separately and pull out the same categories of information. Only after that's finished does it compare those results.

Suddenly, instead of bouncing between two PDFs looking for whether one policy has a different deductible or one subscription has an early cancellation fee, I'm staring at two columns.

And differences are much harder to miss.

I added one more rule: show me where you found it by citing the page number for every detail.

I've learned the hard way that ChatGPT can make mistakes. It can misinterpret a clause, overlook something buried in a table or occasionally sound confident about information that isn't actually there. Page references give me a shortcut for checking its work.

If ChatGPT tells me Option A has a $500 deductible while Option B has a $1,000 deductible, I don't have to trust it blindly or reread 60 pages. I can jump directly to the pages it cites and verify those two numbers myself.

I'd much rather have ChatGPT tell me it couldn't locate a cancellation policy than confidently fill in the blank.

Real-world use cases for this prompt

I typically use this prompt for very technical things like changing wireless providers or insurance companies, but once I started thinking about the technique as structured comparison rather than summarization, I realized how many annoying decisions fit the same pattern.

You could use this hack for apartment leases to compare deposits, fees, renewal clauses and restrictions. Streaming plans to break down monthly cost, AI subscription plans, or even travel packages to check for what's included, refund policies and restrictions.

You can even modify the categories in the prompt depending on what you're comparing.

The important part stays the same: extract > cite > compare > flag what's missing.

Bottom line

I'm not going back to reading 60 pages side by side. There are documents I would never trust an AI to interpret without checking the original, particularly when money, legal obligations or insurance coverage are involved.

But that's also why I like this approach because I'm really not asking ChatGPT to replace my human judgement. I'm using it to point me toward the handful of pages where my judgment is actually needed.

Instead of reading two 30-page documents line by line and hoping I notice every meaningful difference, I can start with a structured comparison, investigate anything unusual and verify the details that could affect my decision.

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Top AI companies have spent plenty of time warning that models could make it easier for someone to develop a biological weapon. Now, Anthropic says it actually had to cut off a group of researchers after their behavior raised alarms.

According to "The New York Times", Anthropic blocked several users this year after spotting activity that looked suspiciously close to bioweapons research.

To be clear: Anthropic doesn't actually know if these researchers were trying to develop a deadly pathogen.

Advanced biology is inherently "dual use" — the same research that can lead to a lifesaving vaccine can potentially be used for something dangerous. But Anthropic flagged the behavior. The researchers reportedly circumvented geographic restrictions to access Claude and took steps to obscure the purpose of their work. That pattern was enough for Anthropic to pull the plug.

How they got around Claude's safeguards

The researchers didn't exactly "hack" Claude. Instead, Anthropic says they found ways to conceal both where they were accessing it from and what they were ultimately trying to accomplish.

In one case, a researcher reportedly accessed Claude from an unsupported region through U.S.-based virtual infrastructure and used an automatically generated account. Anthropic also found Claude requests being routed through a platform serving numerous life-sciences researchers, including virologists with ties to civilian and military institutions.

The researchers also attempted to obscure the purpose of their work to avoid triggering Claude's safeguards. That's particularly difficult to detect in biology because an individual request can look perfectly legitimate even when it contributes to a potentially dangerous larger project.

One of the cases reportedly involved a scientist seeking Claude's help drafting a grant proposal for research that would genetically modify the chikungunya virus to study characteristics including transmissibility and immune evasion. That's research that can have legitimate scientific purposes, which is precisely why Anthropic says it couldn't determine whether the researchers' ultimate intentions were benign or malicious.

Anthropic nevertheless decided the combination of sensitive research and attempts to conceal the activity was enough to shut down the accounts.

Why biology is the ultimate stress test

An AI can't mix chemicals in a petri dish or create bioweapons with physical lab equipment. But AI can act as an accelator.

For someone who already knows their way around a lab, a capable model can break down complex research, analyze data, troubleshoot problems and bridge niche technical gaps. It can give humans everything they need to make dangerous work easier and faster.

That leaves AI companies facing a massive gray area. A legitimate scientist and someone pursuing a biological weapon could ask many of the same questions. And misuse doesn't necessarily arrive as one blatant prompt. Someone can divide a larger project into dozens of innocent-looking tasks, making it much harder for a safety system to understand the bigger picture.

Then there's the problem of false positives. Make those safeguards too aggressive and you risk blocking legitimate scientific research. Make them too permissive and potentially dangerous activity can slip through.

It all comes down to human intent

It's important to clarify what didn't happen here, especially after Jacob Coxon's resignation from Anthropic yesterday, concerns about AI are at an all time high. We worry about models going rogue or autonomous agents acting on their own, but Claude did not go rogue, and autonomous AI agents didn't start plotting a bioweapon on their own. Humans were driving the bus.

That makes the risk far more immediate. The concern in this case isn't a super intelligent AI suddenly deciding to harm humanity. It's that powerful models are giving people capabilities they might not otherwise have had.

For everyday users asking Claude to draft emails, summarize documents or write code, nothing changes. But for the industry, the game has shifted.

So, what can AI companies actually do?

There isn't a perfect fix here. Blocking obvious questions only works when someone is clear about what they are trying to do. If a user breaks a dangerous project into dozens of harmless-looking requests, AI companies need safeguards that can recognize the larger pattern rather than judge every prompt in isolation.

That could mean looking for repeated attempts to bypass a model's safety restrictions, monitoring suspicious patterns across interactions and putting tighter controls around the most powerful scientific capabilities. Companies can also test new models before release to determine how much they could help someone with little expertise perform potentially dangerous biological work.

But every additional safeguard comes with a trade-off. The same systems trying to spot someone developing a biological weapon could also flag a researcher doing legitimate work. That's why Anthropic's disclosure is so important. The next phase of AI safety is about deciding when a pattern of otherwise legitimate-looking behavior becomes dangerous enough for a company to intervene.

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There are always those instances where I come across the kind of stories that remind me that AI shouldn’t be the final decision for a lot of things.

Imagine my shock and awe when I came across a report about three inexperienced hikers heavily relying on Gemini’s advice about trekking up Mount Shasta in California and needing to be saved because of it. Google’s AI assistant advised the trio to bring way less food and water than they actually needed, which turned their eight-hour expedition into a multi-day excursion that led to more suffering than celebrating.

Reading that terrifying piece of news reminded me of something my AI-savvy friend told me when I first started diving into everything ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity have to offer: “You can use it to help you plan things here and there, but you should always rely on your own intelligence and savvy to make the final decision on what to do.”

With that in mind, here are the three sorts of events I’ll never completely rely on to plan and three events I’ll never have any issue letting AI assist me with planning.

3 events I’d never let AI arrange for me

Right from the bat, I know that I’d never let AI completely plan any sort of outdoor experience that could lead me into a situation where I could be fighting for my survival.

AI is great for helping me research the sort of questions I should ask park service rangers and experienced professional hiking guides, plus the AllTrails plugin for ChatGPT is great for getting endorsements for the best verified trails. But I’ll never solely use AI to be the authority for wilderness treks, including mountain climbs, camping, river crossings and other weather-dependent expeditions. I’ll rely on human assistance when I’m looking to be as careful as possible when I want to head outside for some risky adventures.

When it comes to my physical well-being, I never revert to AI to get the final answer on what to do in certain situations. ChatGPT Health exists to let users utilize their health information with the chatbot to get a better grasp of their overall wellness by asking questions. That’s fine and all, but I’d never tap into ChatGPT and comparable AI tools to get the final word on finding out what I should do from a medical standpoint. I may ask AI to give me the sort of questions I should present to a medical professional or explain complex terminology, but I’ll never ask it to tell me to decide what surgery I should get for a certain injury, for example.

As for major financial decisions, that’s something else I’d never rely on AI to help me plan. The fear of believing a chatbot’s financial advice that’s nothing more than a hallucination that results in me losing tons of money scares me half to death. Blindly following AI’s advice about buying a home, starting a business, investing, etc. just isn’t the way to go — asking questions about the pros and cons of those financial decisions is fine, but using AI as the end-all, be-all for future monetary choices just isn’t the way to go. I’m totally okay with asking AI to give me the sort of questions I should consider before making such a massive economic decision, though.

3 activities I'd always use AI to help plan for me

With so many ChatGPT plugins catered towards helping users plan and book vacations, I’ve gotten accustomed to using OpenAI’s chatbot and comparable AI tools to help me plan vacations. Relying on AI to build a day-by-day itinerary, finding the best attractions based on my hobbies & interests and coming up with rainy-day alternatives are among the trip-planning activities I’m fine with AI helping me plan. Once I’ve gotten all the best recommendations for my future getaway from AI, I always make sure to do my own research to see if all of the info can be verified before I hop on a plane.

I’ll admit to not being the best party planner — I usually let someone else be responsible for that and handle the gift-giving portion of festivities. Lately, I’ve gotten used to tapping into Gemini to help me come up with the best venues, gift recommendations, clever decorations, music playlists and homemade menus to consider when planning a celebratory gathering. Once a BBQ-centric holiday like the Fourth of July, Labor Day or someone’s summer birthday rolls around, I’ll set up some plans with AI, share them with whoever else is part of the planning group and go from there.

If you’ve been following my AI writing up until this point, you’ve probably noticed that my 2026 revolves around the word “productivity.” ChatGPT in particular has supplied me with a wealth of personal productivity routines that I’ve used to plan my workdays. AI has risen to the occasion to help me set up a realistic to-do list, break up my work sessions into physical- & mental-amplifying exercises and find the best ways to wind down once the evening hours roll through. AI tools have definitely helped me get more work done, stay healthy and stay sane whenever I’ve used them to produce a productivity regimen.

Final thoughts

I always keep this system in place for certain situations when I consider having AI help me set something up: let AI take the lead for low-stakes situations, let AI assist & help me verify certain bits of information for medium-stakes events and let AI assist & rely on more accomplished individuals to give me the answers I need for more high-stakes decisions.

I’ll have no issue letting Gemini help me plan a weekend sci-fi movie marathon, but I’ll never ask it to help me get out of a major legal situation. Having an AI hallucination resulting in me being behind bars is something I never want to happen…

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Like a lot of people, particularly those working in tech, ChatGPT is practically my default browser tab. With all the plugins available, Codex, and Work, I've discovered it's a great place to dump my messy notes and brainstorming angles.

But the problem with ChatGPT isn't its reasoning ability or capabilities, it's the container. The standard chat interface gets muddy, key details are often lost and the next thing I know I'm copying chunks of my text to an external draft because ChatGPT has completely taken over.

I knew there had to be a better way, so I gave up my dedicated workspace tool and spent a full workday using YouMind instead.

Here is what surprised me most about ditching a conversational chatbot for an asset-first workspace.

1. Chat threads make terrible knowledge bases

In ChatGPT, your context is trapped in a linear scroll. If you upload four different reference documents, a YouTube video transcript and a web page, you have to constantly remind the model which source you are referencing as the thread grows longer. What's different about YouMind though, is that it handles organization through project Boards.

With the YouMind platform, my reference material lived in a dedicated sidebar folder rather than clogging up the chat stream. This was something I didn't even know I needed, but the first time I wanted to query and interview transcript and clicked on the source directly, I was obsessed with how easy and organized it felt.

And, when I wanted cross-source synthesis, I queried the whole board. YouMind lets users treat sources as persistent assets instead of conversational chat history, which help to immediately eliminate the context drift that usually happens five prompts into a ChatGPT session.

2. The 'Ask vs Agent'" mental shift changed my output speed

With ChatGPT, you are always in one continuous chat mode. For me, I find I have to be extremely specific with the chatbot such as prompting it to "Analyze this, but don't write or edit." For some reason, if I show ChatGPT a document, it starts assuming things before I even prompt it to do anything. But YouMind splits actions into two explicit modes.

Ask Mode: Pure inquiry and interrogation. It reads your materials, answers questions and cites exact references without trying to prematurely generate copy.

Agent Mode: Pure production. Once I knew what the angle was, I flipped to Agent Mode, chose a specific "Skill," and had it generate a summarized document and slide outline based directly on my approved notes.

For anyone who teaches workshops, gives presentations at work, or gathers materials for studying, this is a real gamechanger. Separating research synthesis from artifact creation stopped the model from jumping the gun on generic actions before the facts were ironed out.

3. Model agnosticism cures ecosystem fatigue

When you rely solely on ChatGPT, you get GPT’s tone and style across everything you touch. Every response, whether it's travel advice or a professional email drafted to your boss, sounds the same. That means, if you want Claude’s technical precision, you have to copy your context, open another tab, re-upload your files, and start over.

Inside a single YouMind board, you can switch between models on the fly. Yes, you read that correctly; you're not restricted to just one model with YouMind. You can use Claude to refine and edit, then switch to GPT for structural outlines, or lean on Gemini for quick web research. Having multiple model families under one roof without moving files around felt remarkably fluid. It's one of the biggest reasons I plan on using YouMind a lot more.

4. Granular editing beats the 'regenerate' lottery

The most infuriating part of editing drafts in ChatGPT is the rewrite loop. You ask it to tweak a single sentence, and it generates an entirely new 600-word response. This is one of the aspects of ChatGPT that drives me crazy. Since it does that, it essentially forces users to scan and re-read everything again and again just to ensure everything has remained in place and nothing was accidentally cut.

In YouMind's Crafts editor, text behaves like a shared Google Doc, so revisions show up inline with visual differences. From there, you can accept, reject or tweak individual suggestions.

You can highlight just one clunky line and prompt the AI to fix only those words while keeping the surrounding copy untouched.

For anyone who cares about preserving specific wording and cadence, having inline change-tracking inside the AI interface is a massive workflow upgrade over standard chat.

What I missed about ChatGPT

Swapping a complete workflow for the day isn't easy and, even though YouMind is pretty easy intuitive, there were still some pretty important features that I missed about ChatGPT.

Raw conversational speed: For lightning-fast, throwaway queries ("convert this to grams" or "give me 10 alternative verbs for this social post), firing off a two-second prompt in ChatGPT is still faster than setting up or navigating a board.

Complex multi-step reasoning: While YouMind lets you access top frontier models, ChatGPT’s native canvas and advanced reasoning toggles still feel slightly more dialed in for heavy logic, reasoning or deep code debugging.

Mobile accessibility: ChatGPT's mobile experience is mature across both iOS and Android. YouMind was pretty good on desktop but not as great on mobile.

The takeaway

ChatGPT is an incredible conversational engine, but it is fundamentally built like a messaging app. For complex research and writing projects, treating an LLM like an instant message conversation creates artificial bottlenecks.

Spending the day in YouMind proved that organizing context into tight project boards and having an inline document editor makes turning research into real deliverables significantly faster. I won't be abandoning ChatGPT for quick, standalone questions, but for deep-dive writing and multi-source research, it's now my new go-to.

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We recently asked AI to rank which jobs would be taken by AI first. Now, Anthropic, the company behind Claude is trying to answer the question we are all asking: what happens if AI keeps getting better?

The company's new economic model explores what happens the more AI grows, specifically, how it could affect jobs, wages and the U.S. economy through 2030. Some of the results are striking.

Under one set of assumptions, the economy grows significantly while wages for "knowledge workers" barely move. The phrase was first coined by management theorist Peter Drucker in 1959 to describe a growing shift in the global economy away from traditional manual labor and toward intellectual and information-based work. A knowledge worker is essentially a professional whose main capital is their expertise, critical thinking and specialized knowledge.

When those assumptions were pushed further, the divide becomes even more dramatic, with the economy growing 32.4% larger than it otherwise would have while knowledge-worker wages fall more than 10%.

To be clear, Anthropic isn't predicting either outcome. The company is just trying to show how factors including AI adoption, automation and workers' ability to change careers could determine who actually benefits if AI delivers the productivity boom its developers have been promising.

Anthropic modeled three different AI futures

We've also covered the future of AI and what the world will look like in 2035. Anthropic's model lets researchers adjust assumptions including how capable AI becomes, how widely businesses adopt it, how autonomously it can work, how much more productive it makes people and how easily displaced workers can find new occupations.

The company then uses three sets of assumptions to illustrate modest, substantial and extreme AI scenarios.

The modest version looks more like previous technological shifts. AI improves productivity and the economy grows, but the effects remain largely within historical norms.

Things look considerably different in the substantial scenario, where AI becomes capable of performing half of all knowledge-work tasks by 2030 and can perform most of those tasks autonomously.

That doesn't mean AI is doing half of all knowledge work. Businesses don't adopt the technology everywhere, so people still perform the majority of knowledge-work tasks across the economy.

Even with that limitation, Anthropic's model has economic growth running at roughly twice its normal rate.

The economy could boom without your paycheck doing the same

In Anthropic's substantial scenario, U.S. GDP reaches $36.3 trillion by 2030, 8.3% higher than it would have been without AI.

Knowledge-worker wages, meanwhile, are essentially flat. Part of the reason is that Anthropic doesn't treat a job as one thing that AI either can or can't replace. Instead, it breaks occupations into individual tasks, some of which AI can augment, some it can automate and others that still require a person.

Consider nursing, an example Anthropic highlights in the model. AI might be able to draft discharge instructions, help monitor patients or organize a care schedule. Other administrative tasks could eventually be automated altogether.

But an AI chatbot can't bathe a patient. Therefore, demand for people performing some types of digital work can fall while the productivity created by AI generates more demand elsewhere.

Anthropic uses construction as another example. If AI dramatically reduces the time required to design and permit infrastructure, more projects could become viable. Those projects still need people to build them, potentially increasing demand and wages for construction workers.

Coders could end up becoming electricians

The calculation changes when AI can automate enough of an occupation that employers simply don't need as many people doing it.

Anthropic uses coders and call-center workers as examples of people who might eventually move into less AI-exposed occupations such as nursing or electrical work.

How easily people can make those transitions turns out to be one of the most important variables in Anthropic's model. If AI eliminates work faster than displaced employees can move elsewhere, unemployment rises, which is also one of the reasons the more extreme results should be reviewed cautiously.

What happens when Anthropic turns the assumptions way up?

Anthropic's extreme scenario is a stress test of what could happen if several aggressive assumptions about AI all come true.

In this version, AI becomes more productive than humans at the vast majority of knowledge-work tasks, performs nearly all of them autonomously and doesn't create enough new types of knowledge work to replace what disappears.

Anthropic says reaching that point would likely require recursively self-improving AI alongside extraordinarily fast adoption. Under those assumptions, the numbers become enormous. By 2030, U.S. GDP reaches $44.4 trillion, making the economy 32.4% larger than it would have been without AI.

Knowledge workers don't experience a corresponding windfall. Their wages fall by more than 10%, while unemployment rises beyond levels normally associated with recessions. This scenario reveals a lot about the relationship between economic growth and the people generating it.

Most Americans aren't expecting the extreme version

As mentioned in the scenario site, Anthropic also asked 10,980 Americans in August what they expect AI to be capable of, how quickly they think businesses will adopt it and how difficult it will be for displaced workers to find other jobs.

When those answers are fed into the model, the typical respondent lands much closer to Anthropic's substantial scenario than its extreme one.

Those expectations produce an economy roughly 10% larger by 2030 than it would have been without AI, with unemployment around 5%. Around 10% of respondents gave answers consistent with Anthropic's extreme scenario.

Even that middle ground would represent a significant change in how millions of people work.

AI capable of performing half of all knowledge-work tasks by 2030 could change which careers companies are hiring for, which skills command higher wages and whether some of today's most sought-after white-collar jobs remain as valuable as they are now.

What this means for your job

There are plenty of reasons to be cautious about taking any of these numbers literally.

Anthropic's model doesn't account for government responses, business cycles, financial-market disruptions, changes in consumer demand or catastrophic AI risks. It also doesn't model a future in which highly capable robots can perform much of today's physical work, which could dramatically change the outlook for occupations that appear relatively protected here.

And again, these are scenarios, not Anthropic's predictions for 2030. What they do show is that the future of work may be more complicated than the familiar question of whether AI will take your job.

AI could make some workers far more productive, reduce demand for others and create new demand in occupations that have little to do with sitting behind a computer. At the same time, the economy could grow much faster without those gains showing up proportionally in workers' paychecks.

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As of September 8, 2026, ChatGPT Images has received a substantial upgrade, taking it from version 2.0 to 2.5.

Beyond just taking your uploaded photos and making them look even prettier, this update adds a host of features that make it even more efficient at handling your photo-related requests. According to the official OpenAI blog announcing the news of ChatGPT Images 2.5, ChatGPT’s latest image editing tool can produce more natural lighting, generate richer textures and is more capable of following your photo editing instructions more reliably as it works across iterative prompts and is much better at preserving multiple subjects in your reference pics.

ChatGPT Images users will also be happy to know that 2.5 works even faster than 2.0 since it generates images 50% faster than its predecessor. And with the introduction of “Sketch,” users can draw directly into ChatGPT and use it as a reference for the final image you’d like to see edited. Currently, ChatGPT Images is available to all ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work, and Codex users across desktop, mobile, and web.

The ChatGPT Images 2.5 blog showed off some cool examples of before-and-after pics that it's capable of delivering. But I asked ChatGPT to offer me some fun prompts worth experimenting with this update. Here are the 7 best ones (with two visual examples of the ones that ended up being my faves).

Make ChatGPT Images 2.5. do more than just “make me a cool picture”

Just like before, using ChatGPT Images is as simple as clicking on the “+” button inside the prompt bar, uploading a photo from your computer or attaching one that’s already in your ChatGPT library and tapping on the + button again to access the “Create image” option. Then, with your chosen photo and the Create Image option activated, enter your prompt to see what newly refined visuals ChatGPT can produce.

As far as fun image-creating and editing prompts go, these are the best ones ChatGPT generated for me (with one of them being a super viral one that I’ve seen all over my timeline):

• It’s time to go retro: Show me what I would look like if I was in the '80s.
• Turn yourself into a movie poster: Using this photo of me as the reference, turn me into the star of a huge Hollywood action movie. Create an original movie title, tagline, billing block, and release date. Make the poster look like a legitimate theatrical one-sheet, with dramatic lighting, cinematic composition, and an expensive blockbuster aesthetic. Keep my face and recognizable features highly consistent with the reference photo.
• Give yourself 7 completely different lives: Using this photo of me as the reference, create a set of seven distinct portraits showing me in seven alternate lives: astronaut, rock star, medieval knight, professional wrestler, video game hero, detective in a 1940s film noir, and futuristic cyberpunk bounty hunter. Keep my face, age, and recognizable features consistent in every version, but completely transform my clothing, environment, and styling.
• Create your own action figure: Turn me into a collectible action figure displayed inside a premium toy package. The packaging should have a fictional character name, an illustrated background, accessories that reflect my hobbies, and a realistic plastic window. Make it look like an actual product photographed for a major toy retailer. Include three accessories and a humorous “special ability” on the packaging. Preserve my recognizable appearance from the reference photo.
• Recreate your childhood photo — in the future: Using this photo as the reference, create a photorealistic version of the same scene taking place 30 years in the future. Preserve the people, poses, and important visual details from the original photograph, but update their clothing, surroundings, technology, architecture, and environment to reflect a believable future. Make it feel like an authentic photograph from that future rather than science fiction concept art.
• Make a ridiculous “Where Are They Now?” photo: Take the people in this photograph and imagine where they would realistically be 20 years later. Preserve their identities and recognizable facial features, age them appropriately, and create a completely new candid photograph showing what their lives might look like. Give each person a different believable career, outfit, and environment. Make the result feel like an authentic documentary photograph rather than an AI-generated image.
• Turn the worst doodle you've ever drawn into something awesome (You can type @Sketch in ChatGPT and draw directly in the interface): Turn my rough sketch into a spectacular finished illustration. Keep the basic shapes, positioning, and idea from my drawing, but transform it into a highly detailed fantasy scene with dramatic lighting, believable textures, and professional concept-art quality. Do not “fix” the underlying concept — make my terrible drawing look intentionally awesome.

To see if ChatGPT Images 2.5’s highly lauded features were worth all the hype, I threw in two of my photos to see if the chatbot could make me look like a super cool ‘80s icon and a blockbuster action movie star. I was pleased with the finished results—let me know if you feel the same:

Final thoughts

I haven’t messed around with ChatGPT Images in a while, so the release of its 2.5 update seemed like the perfect opportunity to see if it's worth taking for a spin. I’ll be sure to comb Reddit threads, my social media timelines and ChatGPT itself for a mix of other fun prompts I can try out with Images 2.5 to see what other cool images I can generate of me, my friends and my family.

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Meta has launched Muse, a new personal AI agent designed to work across the apps and services you already use. Unlike a chatbot that gives you an answer and waits for another prompt, Muse can open a browser, fill out forms, send emails, book travel, make purchases and continue working on a task after you close the app.

You can even give it a bigger goal and let it figure out the steps required to get there, which makes Muse one of the clearest examples of where consumer AI appears to be headed.

But there’s an obvious tradeoff: For Muse to become genuinely useful, you have to give it access to a remarkable amount of your digital life.

Muse isn't just another chatbot

Meta describes Muse as a “personal AI agent,” which is similar to what we've seen from Gemini and ChatGPT recently. Like the AI agents from Meta competitor's Muse is designed to do more.

According to Meta, the agent can open websites, fill out forms and negotiate on your behalf. It can book travel, send emails and make purchases, checking back with you when it needs approval for certain actions.

It can also keep working after you close the app, which opens the door for much longer-running tasks. This could include tasks such as trying to lower a bill, adapting a training plan when your schedule changes or even selling a car, according to Meta's examples in the company press release.

Muse can also remember information you've previously shared and use it later. Meta says it could notice a recipe Reel you saved on Instagram, turn it into a grocery list and remember your friends' dietary restrictions when helping organize a dinner party.

In other words, the goal isn't necessarily for you to keep prompting Muse. It's for Muse to learn enough about your life that it can start anticipating what you might need.

It can spend money for you

One of the biggest differences between an AI assistant and an AI agent is what happens when money gets involved. Muse can make purchases using Stripe's Link payment system. Instead of giving the agent your actual card number, Link generates a one-time-use card for the transaction.

Meta says Muse is also the first AI agent covered by Link's purchase protections, which can include things such as no-fee returns and protection for eligible lost or damaged items.

Shop Pay support is expected to arrive later, while Meta says integration with 1Password is also coming so Muse can use credentials stored in a user's password manager.

That could make tasks such as shopping considerably more convenient. It also raises the stakes considerably if an agent misunderstands what you asked it to do.

Meta built a second AI to watch the first one

Meta clearly knows that giving an autonomous AI access to email, accounts and payments creates an entirely different security problem. Muse therefore runs inside what Meta calls a Secure VM — essentially its own isolated computer in the cloud.

There's also another AI agent running alongside it called Sentinel, separated from Muse at the system level and reviews what the agent is trying to do before its actions reach the internet. Meta says Muse also asks for permission before sensitive actions such as sending an email or making a purchase.

Users can decide which services Muse connects to and what permissions it receives. Giving Muse access to email, for example, doesn't necessarily mean allowing it to send messages.

There's also an audit trail showing what the agent has done and what it plans to do. Meta says Muse doesn't see passwords or payment information directly. Credentials are kept in secure storage and can be used by the agent without revealing the underlying information to it.

Later this year, Meta plans to introduce what it calls Muse Confidential VM, which will encrypt the entire virtual machine with a key held by the user. Meta says that would prevent even the company itself from accessing the data and conversations stored inside.

Safeguards and trust

All of those safeguards matter because Muse potentially has access to some of the most sensitive parts of someone's digital life. And Meta's own testing shows why autonomous agents remain difficult to secure.

Reuters reports that Meta originally planned to release Muse earlier this year but delayed the launch while it worked on security.

Internal testing reportedly produced mixed results. In one particularly concerning example, an employee said the agent managed to get around safeguards and expose personal iCloud photos after being asked to identify toys visible in pictures from a child's birthday party.

Other employees reported reliability problems, including an agent that stopped refreshing a webpage while monitoring hard-to-find tickets and sometimes silently ignored errors.

Meta told Reuters that it had done enough additional security work to reach the threshold required to release Muse, although the company acknowledged that mistakes remain possible.

Final thoughts

We've now entered a post-chatbot era. There are already plenty of AI agents capable of using computers, browsers and other tools. What's potentially significant about Muse is who Meta wants using it.

Muse is rolling out in the U.S. on iOS and Android and through the web, and you can also talk to it directly through WhatsApp. Meta says support for its AI glasses is coming soon. There's a free tier, with paid plans available for people who need heavier usage.

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Out of all the negatives I can admit about myself, setting up dates sticks out as one of my biggest weaknesses.

In the past, I’ve struck out horribly by trying to woo my potential mates by taking them to the sorts of places that made them rethink ever meeting up with me again. My first date fumbles have led me and whoever was unlucky enough to see me to dive bars with horrible lighting, restaurants with disappointing menu options and lounges with booming speakers that didn’t allow for a whole lot of meaningful conversations.

Somehow, someway, I managed to nab myself another opportunity to enjoy a nice night on the town with someone. And this time, I made it my mission to find out her likes and dislikes when it comes to hanging out & having fun.

With all the information in tow, I got a bright idea — take all of my future date’s favorite hobbies, interests, and types of hangouts to Google Maps and use Ask Maps to find the perfect spots worth considering. And to my surprise, it offered me a solid selection of date-worthy locations.

7 date night suggestions that made my planning less of a headache

As I’m sure you’ve already noticed from the screenshot posted above, I told Google Maps’ Ask Maps feature all about my future date’s favorite things—since she’s an old soul with an affinity for the more geeky pastimes I’m also into, I had a feeling there would be plenty of viable options to consider as the perfect date locales. Ask Maps showcased its date spot picks across two categories: Interactive & Playful Dates and Intimate Vibes & Elevated Floors.

Here are the New York City settings that were listed under the first group:

• Barcade: If you want a classic, high-energy date centered around gaming, heading to Barcade in Chelsea is a perfect choice. It keeps the focus purely on adult socializing over retro cabinets rather than tickets and prizes. Reviewers call it a fantastic adult playground for nostalgic gaming. Challenge her to a cooperative game like X-Men or classic pinball. Check out their extensive, rotating selection of American craft beers on tap.
• The Cinemas NYC: For a luxurious spin on movie night, The Cinemas NYC (IPIC Theaters) at the Seaport turns a screening into a premium experience. It is completely different from your standard theater with its plush seating arrangements and top-tier hospitality. Patrons rave about the luxurious, private feel of the double seating pods. Book a “Premium Plus” ticket to get reclining leather seats that come with pillows and blankets. Use the in-seat service to order gourmet dishes and cocktails directly to your shared table without interrupting the film.
• Izakaya Nana: Tucked away in Flushing, Izakaya Nana is an absolute dream destination for anyone who loves Japanese fantasy aesthetics and otaku culture. The entire venue doubles as a massive homage to graphic novels and subculture. Otakus admire the manga-panel-lined walls, traditional tatami spaces, and classic anime projections running in the background. Ask to be seated in a booth surrounded by their massive library of manga volumes. Rent traditional kimonos on-site to fully immerse yourselves in the experience.
• Other Half Brewing Company: If she is a true craft beer geek, making a pilgrimage to the original Other Half Brewing Company in Brooklyn is mandatory. This is the epicenter where modern craft culture evolved. Visitors note the incredibly relaxed, friendly taproom environment. Sample their world-famous Hazy IPAs and innovative Oat Creme double-hopped variations at the source. Snag a few limited-release four-packs from their retail fridge to take home after a date.

After observing the four more adventurous options Google Maps’ Ask Maps assistant provided me with, I took note of the three other nightspots that are geared more towards intimate meetups:

• Eavesdrop: For a sophisticated, audio-forward evening, Eavesdrop in Greenpoint is a minimalist listening bar specifically designed around a high-end sound system. It is curated so that the music remains a central showcase without drowning out your intimate conversation. Patrons love the sleek wood styling and crystal-clear acoustics. Try to secure seating near the cork-lined turntable booth to watch the vinyl selection up close. Sip on their craft cocktail menu, which features creative, Asian-inspired flavor profiles.
• Record Room: Hidden along the Long Island City waterfront, Record Room delivers a speakeasy atmosphere built entirely around the art of the spin. It functions as a cozy neighborhood cafe by day before transforming into a moody, music-centric lounge at night. Visitors frequently praise the highly talented local DJs spinning classic retro sets exclusively on vinyl. Enjoy the dramatic aesthetic of the room, which features custom Hi-Fi loudspeakers and walls adorned with records. Make a reservation ahead of time, as the space is quite intimate and fills up quickly on weekends.
• Gaonnuri: If you want to elevate a standard dinner date, Gaonnuri takes classic Korean barbecue and moves it to a stunning penthouse space on the 39th floor. It offers an upscale atmosphere that feels completely removed from the frantic pace of the streets below. Diners highlight the incredible, unobstructed views of the Manhattan skyline. Enjoy a fully hosted experience where the attentive waitstaff handles all the tabletop grilling for you. Appreciate the advanced ventilation system, which ensures you leave dinner without any lingering smoke smells.

Out of all the spots that were presented to me, the ones that ended up making the final cut after I sent them to my date were Barcade, Izakaya Nana, Eavesdrop and Record Room. While the skyline views and delicious delicacies presented by Gaonnuri intrigued us, their high prices brought our increased levels of hype out of orbit as we opted for Ask Maps’ more affordable offerings. If we end up talking beyond our initial meetups, then maybe we’ll consider getting a table over there (honestly, that place seems more catered to serious couples).

The takeaway

I know I’m going to be lambasted with comments about how much of an amateur I am when it comes to planning dates. While I’m not guilty of taking women to chain restaurants and overly loud places that lead to us screaming in each other’s ears, I’ve taken plenty of swings and missed with some of the locations I’ve chosen. From now on, I’ll refrain from doing my usual Google search for “best date spots [location],” ask for date recommendations while also considering my date’s hobbies & interests and forward them to my prospective date to see if any of them match their vibe.

More from Tom’s Guide

• AI is turning ordinary photos of kids into sexual abuse imagery — here's how to protect your family
• Chrome could soon let you ask Google about anything on your screen — even outside the browser
• Gemini just got a 'floating bubble' multitasking upgrade that's a game changer on Android phones — here's how to use it

This month has been a whirlwind for AI, with major new models arriving within days of one another. Google just released Gemini 3.8 Flash, and at first glance it has a tough job ahead of it. GPT-6 Astra is OpenAI's most capable model, while Claude Fable 5.1 is Anthropic's latest powerhouse for coding and long-running projects.

However, there's one area where Google's new Flash model has an advantage over both: video understanding.

Gemini 3.8 Flash can take video directly as an input and reason about what's happening across it. GPT-6 Astra doesn't support video input, and neither does Claude Fable 5.1. And while this might sound like a minor difference, in practice, it actually opens up an entire category of things users can ask Gemini to do that aren't native to the other two models.

Gemini can actually watch your video

Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts text, images, video, audio and PDFs as inputs, with a context window of just over 1 million tokens.

Video is particularly interesting because Google isn't simply converting a clip into a handful of screenshots and asking Gemini what's in them.

Gemini 3.8 Flash supports what Google calls "agentic video understanding." Instead of processing an entire long video in exactly the same way, the model can navigate through its timeline and decide which transcripts, frames and audio it needs to inspect to answer your question.

Google says this approach can use up to 88% fewer tokens on long-form video while delivering roughly 7% higher quality.

That means you could give Gemini a long recording and ask something surprisingly specific such as, Where did the speaker mention a particular subject? What happened immediately before someone entered the room? What was being shown on screen when a certain point was discussed?

Just from those prompts, Gemini can return answers tied to specific moments in the video rather than forcing you to scrub through it yourself.

GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable 5.1 can't do this natively

GPT-6 Astra has a slightly larger 1.05-million-token context window and supports text and images, but OpenAI's model documentation explicitly lists both audio and video input as unsupported.

Claude Fable 5.1 has a 1-million-token context window and impressive vision capabilities, particularly for understanding diagrams, charts, tables and other visual information. But Anthropic lists its input/output capabilities as "text and images > text."

Users can extract frames, generate a transcript or use additional tools before handing that information to the model, it just isn't a native feature in the same way it is with Gemini. Gemini 3.8 Flash was designed to accept it.

Audio is part of the advantage, too

That key difference also applies to audio. Gemini 3.8 Flash accepts audio directly alongside its other input types. That means the model can reason over what it hears as part of a larger multimodal task rather than requiring you to turn everything into text first.

And video gives it both sides of the equation. Google says Gemini's video processing can work with the visual frames, audio and timestamps together. Its agentic mode can even decide whether it needs to retrieve a transcript, inspect frames or examine audio from a particular section of a video.

That's useful for everything from analyzing a lecture to finding a particular moment in a vacation video.

The takeaway

What's particularly interesting is that this isn't Google's biggest, most expensive model. Google describes Gemini 3.8 Flash as its most intelligent Flash model yet, designed to combine complex reasoning and agentic capabilities with the speed and cost efficiency the Flash family is known for.

GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable 5.1 may be stronger choices for other jobs. Both are explicitly designed around difficult reasoning and long-running agentic work, and choosing an AI model based on a single capability would miss the bigger picture.

But video is becoming even more important of what we give AI. From class presentations and tutorials to live video rather than text, Gemini 3.8 holds the advantage over its two biggest rivals. To get started, all you have to do is upload a video or paste a link to the video in the chat and ask it to watch.

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• AI is turning ordinary photos of kids into sexual abuse imagery — here's how to protect your family
• Anthropic modeled what AI could do by 2030 — the economy gets 32% richer while workers get left behind
• Meta just launched an AI that can actually run your life online — here's what Muse can do

A picture of my children at the beach, my son playing soccer or even my entire family, smiling in front of our house are all examples of photos I've posted to social media. I know I'm not alone, considering just how often I've seen similar images highlighting the goings-on of modern lives.

But AI has created a disturbing new risk that allows the use of ordinary photos of real children like the ones I mentioned above, to be manipulated into sexual abuse imagery without the child — or their parents — ever knowing.

To be clear, this is not a theoretical threat.

332 AI-generated child sexual abuse ads slipped through

A new investigation from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) found hundreds of ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) running across Facebook and Instagram. Researchers identified four real children whose ordinary photos had been manipulated, according to WIRED, including two teenage influencers, a preteen whose image appeared on a stock-photo site and a young member of a European royal family.

In total, TTP found 332 ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material, or CSAM. Most depicted a child whose photograph had been manipulated using AI to make it appear they were performing a sexual act.

The findings are an alarming reminder of how generative AI has changed the risks around sharing photos of children online. Creating convincing fake imagery no longer requires an explicit photograph in the first place. An ordinary picture can provide the raw material.

How ordinary photos become AI-generated abuse

Generative AI image tools can take an existing photograph and modify parts of it while preserving recognizable features of the person in the original.

That's what researchers say happened to several of the children identified in the Meta ads.

According to WIRED, researchers were able to trace images of four minors back to their original sources. Two were teenage influencers with public social media accounts. Another was a preteen whose photograph was available through a stock-photo website. The fourth was a young member of a European royal family.

None of those original photographs needed to contain sexual material for them to be misused.

"AI apps are making it far too easy to create realistic criminal imagery of child sexual abuse, creating the new risk of everyday photos of children being taken and transformed into sexual content," Emma Hardy, director of communications at the Internet Watch Foundation, told WIRED.

Once an ordinary image is publicly accessible, someone can potentially download it and feed it into an AI tool designed to alter photographs.

Meta's AI didn't catch hundreds of the ads

The scale of the latest investigation also shows how difficult the resulting content can be to stop.

In August, TTP researchers initially uncovered 53 ads containing child sexual abuse material across Meta's platforms. Meta subsequently said many of those ads had appeared before the company introduced new AI technology intended to improve its ability to detect violating ads when they were uploaded.

However, researchers kept finding them. In fact, TTP says it ultimately identified 332 ads containing AI-generated CSAM, with hundreds appearing after Meta had announced its improved detection technology.

That is particularly significant because these weren't simply Facebook or Instagram posts that escaped moderation. They were paid advertisements.

Meta says ads are reviewed before they're allowed to run and that automated systems play a major role in that process.

Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton told WIRED that the company does not tolerate nudify apps or child exploitation, whether the imagery involves real children or is generated by AI. Meta said bad actors deliberately attempt to evade its detection systems and that some of the videos were harder to detect because images of children appeared only briefly or were blurred.

The company said many of the ads researchers identified had already been removed, most received fewer than 200 impressions and it received less than $5,000 in payments from the ads. But researchers documented instances in which exposure increased after an ad was reported.

TTP says one ad involving a real teenager had reached four European accounts when it was reported to Meta. Several days later, when Meta removed it, the ad had reached more than 330.

The investigation shows the tools are mainstream

Researchers found ads directing people toward nearly 50 apps available through Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store. Around 300 of the roughly 350 ads examined in the broader investigation promoted AI image or video generators, according to WIRED.

Apple told WIRED that some developers initially submitted compliant versions of their apps before subsequently adding prohibited nudification capabilities. Apple said it removed 17 of 20 apps identified by researchers and took action against the remaining three, as well as seven additional apps WIRED identified.

Google said it removed all apps included in the report and suspended hundreds of other apps for violating its policies.

Still, these finding reveal a problem that extends beyond any single platform because AI can be used to create the imagery. An app store can distribute the tool used to make it. An advertising platform can then distribute ads promoting it.

Each layer may have its own safety systems, but abusive material only needs to slip through those systems once to reach users.

What to do if you find an AI-generated image of your child

If you discover sexualized AI imagery involving your child, don't repost or widely share the image in an attempt to warn others.

Instead, preserve information that can help identify where the material appeared, such as the account name, page address and other surrounding details, and report the content directly to the platform.

In the U.S., suspected child sexual exploitation can also be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline.

Parents can also use NCMEC's Take It Down service, which is designed to help stop the online sharing of nude, partially nude or sexually explicit images or videos involving someone who was under 18. The system creates a digital fingerprint, or hash, from an image without requiring the image itself to be uploaded.

Since AI-generated imagery creates newer and more complicated scenarios, parents who aren't sure whether a manipulated image qualifies should still report what they've found rather than trying to determine that themselves.

The takeaway

Parents have been warned about "sharenting" and children's digital footprints for years. Sharenting is a term that combines "sharing" and "parenting" and is the practice of parents sharing images, videos and personal details about their children on social media.

Although parents can't entirely eliminate the risk of AI abuse on the images or videos they post, but reducing the number of publicly accessible photos of your children and being more selective about what you share, can reduce the amount of material available to people who might misuse it.

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• ChatGPT-6 Astra is here — this one prompt shows what it can really do
• I asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity to rank the 10 jobs most likely to be replaced by AI — here's what they all agreed on
• Claude Fable 5.1 is here — this one prompt shows what it can really do

Pulling up AI assistants on your Apple and Android device entails using them primarily within their app homebases and not being able to do anything else while it’s working.

In one case, you can continue your ChatGPT conversations through the “Voice” feature while you switch between your apps and even lock your phone. From a multitasking standpoint, that feature works like a charm. Android users are now getting something similar with Google Gemini, but with a feature that lets you complete more complex tasks through your text prompts.

Before, the Gemini overlay on Android mobile devices commanded a large portion of the screen and didn’t allow for much multitasking since you couldn’t use any of the other apps until Gemini completed its tasks.

Now, Google is rolling out this new Gemini minimizing feature for Android users. Here’s how it works and how to use it.

Minimizing Gemini is now possible and multitasking is so much easier to accomplish

Android users no longer have to stare at a loading screen while Gemini tends to their complex requests.

Now you can tap the “Minimize” button while it responds to your prompts, while you jump to other apps, handle your emails, scroll through your social media feeds or simply look up anything through your web browser. The Minimize button sits right above the pill-shaped Gemini bar and now shows a message that pops up to let you know that you can complete other jobs while it’s working: “Gemini is still available while you multitask. Tap to expand. Drag to move or dismiss.” Android users can even tap the minimized Gemini bubble to reopen your chat, drag it to move it or swipe it away to close it.

Two users have shown off this new Gemini minimizing feature through posts on Telegram via this link and this other link. Now the Gemini app is being set up as a multitasking AI assistant that has evolved from a stationary pop-up tool to something more of a dynamic background module. This feature began rolling out on September 4.

Before this feature began rolling out, the Gemini mobile app on Android handled multi-step tasks for its users in specific apps through a beta feature called “screen automation.” As explained by the official Pixel Phone Help guide, this previously released Gemini multitasking shortcut has become available for the following Android devices: Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL, Samsung Galaxy S26 Series, Z Flip 8 and Z Fold 8.

Final thoughts

Gemini’s minimized overlay that turns it into a bubble that multitasks while you work in other apps sounds like a lifesaver. I’d love to see this sort of feature become widely available for other AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity across Apple and Android devices. I’ll have to revert to my Android mobile device-using friends to see this feature in action (I’m a loyal Apple iPhone user, after all) and use it to summarize long articles or conduct other experiments.

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• 7 surprisingly useful AI uses for retirees and empty nesters to make their lives easier
• Claude Fable 5.1 is here — this one prompt shows what it can really do
• Communities may soon be left in the dark about new local data centers under a proposed EPA rule change

AI data centers are becoming a hot topic in many communities across the country. Every time big tech launches a new, more capable model or advanced feature, the use cases increase the need for more compute power for AI tools and cloud services.

Now, a proposed change from the Environmental Protection Agency could make it harder for residents of proposed data center locations to find out about the projects before they are approved.

As reported by the Associated Press on Thursday, the proposal would remove a federal requirement for states to give the public notice and an opportunity to comment before issuing certain air pollution permits.

Although the change is not specific to data centers, it would apply to a category of facilities considered "minor" sources of air pollution under the Clean Air Act. These include businesses ranging from repair shops and laundromats to landfills and steel mills. It could also apply to data centers, making the proposal especially important as big tech races to secure locations to support AI growth.

What is the EPA proposing?

The EPA first proposed the rule in July, and it involves a part of the Clean Air Act called the New Source Review, or NSR, program. Right now, under federal regulations, minimum requirements are set to ensure the public is involved when states and local agencies handle these minor-source permits. According to the EPA's explanation of the permitting process, the public is given 30 days to submit their concerns or request a public hearing.

Although the EPA wants to eliminate that, it doesn't mean every state would stop notifying residents about proposed facilities. It just wouldn't be a requirement. The concern leans more toward states that don't have strong requirements already in place of their own.

Why does this matter for data centers?

Data centers need enormous amounts of power to keep thousands of servers running. Additionally, they have diesel generators that can provide backup power if there is a problem with the electric grid.

Those generators can release pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. Depending on the size of a project and its expected emissions, the generators can be covered by minor-source air permits.

Data centers have also become a much bigger political issue as AI companies expand their infrastructure.

Communities have raised concerns about their electricity and water use, noise and pollution. At the same time, supporters point to the investment and tax revenue they can bring to local communities.

The debate is especially important in places such as Virginia and Georgia, which have become major centers for data center construction.

The AP reports that environmental groups are concerned about states in the South and Midwest where local public-notice requirements may not go beyond what the federal government requires.

If the federal requirement disappears, residents in one state might continue receiving notices about proposed projects while people in another state could have fewer opportunities to learn about them or comment before a permit is approved.

Why does the EPA want to change the rule?

The EPA says the proposal is about reducing unnecessary delays rather than weakening environmental protections.

The agency argues that minor sources generally produce lower emissions than major sources and that the Clean Air Act itself does not require these federal public-notice and comment procedures for minor sources.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the change would cut “unnecessary and burdensome red tape” while giving more authority to state and local governments.

The EPA also says the proposal would not change emissions standards. Facilities would still have to meet applicable air-quality requirements.

An EPA spokesperson told the AP that describing the proposal as an attempt to hide data centers is a “false narrative.” The agency's position is that states should decide how their own public participation process works.

Critics see the situation differently

Mike Koerber, a former deputy director of the EPA's air quality office, told the AP that eliminating the federal requirement could create an “unlevel playing field” where residents in some states know about new projects while those elsewhere do not.

A coalition of nearly 200 environmental, health and community groups has also opposed the proposal.

Keri Powell, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, told the AP that communities should have an opportunity to weigh in before projects that could affect them are approved.

Data centers are becoming a political issue

The proposal comes as the Trump administration pushes for faster development of AI infrastructure in the United States.

President Donald Trump has argued that data centers are important to America's competition with China in artificial intelligence. He has also acknowledged the growing public resistance to them and has urged technology companies to generate their own electricity rather than driving up utility costs for other customers.

Final thoughts

According to a 2025 AP-NORC poll, about four in 10 American adults said they were extremely or very concerned about AI's effects on the environment. Americans were also more likely to believe AI would hurt rather than help the environment over the next decade.

Data centers are not the only facilities that would be affected by the EPA proposal, and eliminating the federal requirement would not automatically eliminate public input everywhere.

But the debate raises a bigger question as AI expands: How much should people get to know about — and have a say in — the infrastructure being built in their communities?

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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The one thing I’ve started to notice for the older folks in my family is how they’re still a bit wary of AI.

Some of them refer to AI as “that ChatGPT thing,” just like I remember them referring to video games as just “Nintendo.” It’s still a foreign concept for the sort of boomers who have entered their retirement age, especially for those who no longer have access to their tech-savvy children in the next room since they’ve finally gotten a place of their own. But I have noticed some people in their 60s and 70s whip out their phones to type out simple prompts and talk to the chatbots they have at their disposal.

If you consider yourself a part of the boomer generation and are looking for ways that AI can assist you in your everyday life, there is a wealth of beneficial uses that come from utilizing the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.

Here are seven of those serviceable methods and a few examples of the sort of prompts that apply to each of them.

1. Get a better understanding of technology-related issues

I can’t even fathom the number of times my aunts, uncles and grandparents have lit up my phone with texts asking for solutions to their tech problems. Setting up their new phone, getting to the bottom of their Wi-FI disconnection errors, trying to connect their new smart TV to the Wi-Fi, and trying to find out how to use a streaming service on their smart TV are among those common problems.

Asking AI to assist you with those sorts of lingering tech issues can be done using the following example prompts:

• Explain how to set up my new iPhone [model name and number] step by step. Assume I’m not very comfortable with technology and don’t skip any steps.
• My Wi-Fi keeps disconnecting. Walk me through the most likely causes and tell me exactly what to try, one step at a time.
• Explain how to connect my smart TV to Wi-Fi like you’re helping someone who has never done it before.
• Explain how to stream [name of streaming service] on my smart TV. Tell me what buttons to press and what I should see on the screen at each step.
• I just bought a new Android [model name and number] phone. Give me a simple checklist for transferring my contacts, photos, apps, and messages from my old phone.
• I keep running out of storage on my phone. Show me how to figure out what's taking up space and safely free some of it.

2. Tap into a chatbot as a research assistant that can easily explain complex topics

For those who are in their 60s and older, terms such as “Medicare” start to become more central to your everyday life. And when you’re hoping to gain a bit of crucial information on a trending topic in the tech industry (you gotta keep up with the younger generation and stay in the know!), get an explanation of a financial document you’ve attached to your chosen chatbot and need some advice before you make a major decision, AI can help out in all those cases.

The following prompts are just a few examples of how you can turn your chatbot into a digital research assistant:

• Explain Medicare to me like I'm a complete beginner. Start with the basics and gradually introduce more complicated concepts.
• I keep hearing people talk about [technology]. Explain what it is, why people care about it, and whether it has any practical use for someone like me.
• Explain this financial document to me in plain English. Highlight anything I should ask a qualified financial professional about. (Make sure you attach the financial document you want more clarity about)
• I need to make a decision about [explain your situation]. Give me a balanced summary of the strongest arguments for and against each option.
• I'm comparing these two health insurance plans. Explain the major differences in plain English and give me a list of questions I should ask before choosing one. (Be sure to include links or document attachments for both plans alongside this prompt)

3. Turn vacation planning into a simpler affair

I’m sure there’s a bunch of retirees who want to live a little and do some domestic and international exploring at their age. AI can play the role of your digital vacation planner with ease—ChatGPT even features a wealth of plugins that you can install through the desktop/mobile app itself to make restaurant reservations, plan multi-day excursions, book flights & hotels, find the perfect cruise getaways, etc.

Simply open the sidebar to get access to the “Plugins” menu to see all the “Travel” apps available to you. Then type directly to any of them by @’ing them and mentioning them by name.

These starter prompts should give you a good idea of what you should be asking of your preferred vacation planning chatbot when you need some extra assistance:

• Plan a [number]-day vacation to [destination] for me. I prefer a relaxed pace, don't want to feel rushed, and want enough downtime each day.
• I'm visiting [destination] for [number] days. Create an itinerary focused on history, great food, and interesting sights, but limit me to no more than three major activities per day.
• I'm traveling to [destination] and don't know the local customs. Give me a simple guide to tipping, public transportation, dining etiquette, and common cultural mistakes tourists should avoid.
• I'm taking a long flight to [destination]. Create a plan for what I should do before, during, and after the flight to make the trip less stressful.
• Act as my travel-planning assistant. Before recommending anything, ask me five questions about my budget, interests, travel style, food preferences and pace. Then build my itinerary based on my answers.

4. Build fitness and wellness routines

Staying as physically active as possible in the later years of your life is possible—I can take one look around my neighborhood and be greeted by the inspiring sight of older folks powerwalking, lightly jogging or performing simple stretching exercises in the park. AI can aid you in that regard once you give it a clear set of directions aimed at outlining the perfect exercise routine that’s meant to rejuvenate you and get you some much-needed fresh air.

These are the sorts of prompts you’ll want to present to your digital workout instructor to get you more active:

• I’m a [age] who wants to take better care of myself without completely changing my lifestyle. Help me create a simple daily wellness routine that includes movement, healthy meals, relaxation, sleep and time for things I enjoy. Keep it realistic and sustainable rather than intense.
• I don't enjoy traditional workouts. Give me [number] ways to build more movement into my normal day through activities like walking, gardening, household projects, hobbies, and outings. Prioritize activities that are enjoyable enough that I’ll actually keep doing them.
• I enjoy [list of hobbies]. Create a wellness plan that uses my hobbies to help me stay physically active, mentally engaged, and socially connected. I want wellness to feel like something I enjoy, not another chore.
• Help me create a 30-minute morning routine designed for someone in their 60s or 70s who wants to start the day feeling energized and organized. Include gentle movement, hydration, breakfast, planning, and something enjoyable. Don't make it feel like a productivity challenge.

5. Learn new skills and turn them into your latest hobby

There’s no age limit when anyone’s interested in picking up a new hobby, especially when it comes with learning something new in the process. Using AI to learn the basics of whatever you may be interested in, asking follow-up questions about said topic and doing some outside research on your newly acquired skill-turned-hobby is definitely worth doing, even at an older age.

Here are a few examples of the prompts you can use to pave the way to your next skill-building session:

• Teach me the basics of photography. Assume I'm a complete beginner and create a four-week learning plan with one small lesson each day.
• I want to learn [name of language]. Create a 15-minute-a-day beginner program that focuses on conversations I'm likely to have while traveling.
• Teach me how to play chess. Start at the absolute beginner level and give me exercises after each lesson.
• I want to learn gardening. Ask me questions about my yard, climate, sunlight and available time, then create a beginner's learning plan.
• I've always wanted to learn woodworking. Create a beginner's curriculum that starts with safety and basic tools before moving into simple projects.

6. Use it to give you an another opinion before making your next big purchase

I’ve definitely had those moments where the older members of my family call me to ask if purchasing a new TV, smartphone or any other gadget is worth it. I provide all the tech savvy I can during those conversations, but now I make sure to also tell them to refer to AI to ask those same questions for an extra opinion. These sorts of prompts can push you in the right direction whenever you need some more consideration about what you’re set to buy next:

• I'm looking for a new TV. My budget is [cash value]. I sit about [number] feet away and mostly watch [types of content. Tell me which specifications actually matter to me.
• I'm buying a new smartphone. I care most about battery life, camera quality, and ease of use. Help me determine which features I should prioritize.
• I'm replacing my [type of gadget]. Give me a list of features worth paying extra for and features that probably aren't worth the additional cost for someone with basic needs.
• I'm overwhelmed by all the technical specifications for [product]. Explain which five specifications matter most for my use case and why.

7. Turn it into your personal scam detector

ChatGPT users will be happy to know that it features plugins built specifically to help you figure out if a URL, phone number, text message or email is trustworthy or not. The two plugins that I’m alluding to are Malwarebytes and McAfee. Beginning your prompt by @’ing either of those installed plugins, using any of the following prompts, then copying & pasting any of the aforementioned things that might be a scam should make you more aware of what you're dealing with:

• Is this link safe to click?
• Is the DM I just shared with you from a scammer?
• Analyze this email for potential scam warning signs. Explain every red flag you find.
• I received this text message. What tactics, if any, does it use to create urgency or pressure me into acting?
• Someone claiming to be from my bank sent me this message. What questions should I ask the bank through an official channel before doing anything?

Bottom line

I know it may be hard for some to grasp the concept of using AI to make one’s life easier in some respects and more fulfilling in others. But it can totally be done—the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot aren’t just great for professionals; they’re also supportive tools for retirees and empty nesters who need help for a wide range of tasks. Here’s hoping this guide can help you or the older folks you know discover the best ways to include AI tools in their lives to keep them safe from scams, help them build new skills and more.

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Claude Fable 5.1 arrived this week and it's Anthropic’s latest high-end model, built for complex tasks that require sustained reasoning. Its biggest focus is agentic work, meaning it can plan, use tools, check its own progress and keep working through problems with less supervision.

With a 1-million-token context window, it's useful for huge codebases, lengthy documents and research-heavy projects. Anthropic says it delivers major gains in coding and long-running tasks while reducing the cost of some agentic workloads through cheaper caching. The simplest way to think about Fable 5.1 is that it’s designed to be given a project, not just a prompt.

For those new to Claude who want to dive directly into Fable 5.1, here's the one prompt I suggest you try first.

Give Fable 5.1 a project

Fable 5.1 can handle more, which means you'll want to give it a sturdier and more meaningful prompt.

Here's a good prompt to see what Fable 5.1 can do: I'm building [describe a real project you're actually working on, in detail]. Here's my current approach: [paste your code, outline, or plan]. Tell me what's wrong with my thinking, what I'm missing, and then refactor or redesign the whole thing — but explain your reasoning at each decision point so I can learn from it.

While this prompt may seem deceptively simple, it makes sense for an AI that can do so much more than previous models. I especially like it because you're not starting with a blank slate. Instead, you're giving the AI something of yours that you've already started. That's always a recipe for a better and more thorough response.

Instead of asking Claude to create something from a clean set of instructions, you're handing it work that already exists, complete with your assumptions, mistakes and potentially questionable decisions. From there, Fable 5.1 has to figure out what you're trying to accomplish before deciding whether the way you're doing it actually makes sense.

And crucially, you're explicitly giving Claude permission to tell you that you're wrong. One of the least useful things an AI assistant can do is take a bad premise and enthusiastically help you execute it. This prompt asks Fable 5.1 to interrogate the premise first. Only then does it get to rebuild the project.

What the prompt is really testing

There are several jobs hidden inside this prompt. First, Claude needs to understand the project and the approach you've already taken. Then it has to identify weaknesses that you may not have noticed yourself.

After that comes the harder part of deciding which problems actually matter and where the AI should begin.

A model could easily nitpick everything it sees and produce a huge list of suggestions without making the project meaningfully better. A useful response requires judgment about which decisions should stay, which should change and what those changes will affect elsewhere.

Finally, Claude has to redesign the work while keeping track of those decisions.

That's why I particularly like the final instruction to explain your reasoning at each decision point so I can learn from it.

With this prompt, you get to see what Claude knows and why it chose one path over another. There is an important caveat here. AI models don't provide a literal transcript of their private internal reasoning, and you shouldn't treat an explanation as a window into exactly what happened inside the model. What Claude can provide is a useful explanation or justification for the decisions it made

What should you give Fable 5.1?

If you're a developer, you could paste in code for something you've been building and explain what you're trying to accomplish. But you don't have to write code.

You could give Claude a business plan you've been struggling with, the outline for a novel that isn't quite working, a research project, a presentation, a home renovation plan or almost anything else where you've already made decisions and aren't sure they're the right ones.

In fact, I'd argue that the messier the project is, the more useful the test becomes.

A perfectly written brief gives the model a relatively easy job. Real projects aren't like that. They contain assumptions we haven't explained, ideas we've become attached to and decisions that made sense three weeks ago but don't anymore.

That's exactly what I want Fable 5.1 to find. When I put it to the test, I uploaded my entire manuscript for a book I'm working on. Then, I used this prompt without giving it any additional hints about what I thought was wrong with my work. Of course, that was the intentional part.

If I tell Claude where I think the problems are or what needs edits, I'm already steering the critique. I wanted to see whether Fable 5.1 would independently notice the same weaknesses — and, more importantly, whether it would find anything I had missed.

What surprised me

I was surprised by how thorough Fable 5.1 was with its feedback and line edits. It offered suggestions without being overly editorial or trying to remove my voice at all.

One of my favorite things about Claude is that it doesn't just go ahead with edits the way ChatGPT or Gemini often will do. Claude questioned my assumptions, offered to change the structure for clarity and even found a problem with one of the chapters that I hadn't noticed.

From there, I let it outline what I would need to improve my manuscript and what other projects I could potentially develop from it.

But finding problems is only half the test. The second part of my prompt asks Fable 5.1 to "refactor or redesign the whole thing," which means it now has to turn its criticism into something better.

Because this was a manuscript and not a presentation, I didn't want to give it the reins in that aspect. Instead, I asked it to make a list instead of going in with all the changes. More importantly, Fable 5.1 explained why it suggested those changes.

Of course, I didn't agree with all of the changes, but that's what I like about using AI as a partner and not something that does the entire job for me.

Bottom line

If you're ready to ask AI for something beyond your typical query, Fable 5.1 is a great place to start. This is a great prompt — just be sure you don't waste your usage limits on a fake project. I mean, if you're going to try it, try it with something you're actually working on.

The reason Claude's prompt works is because you already know the material you're giving it. That puts you in a much better position to judge whether Fable 5.1's criticism is insightful or merely sounds convincing.

Take something you've genuinely been working on and give Claude enough context to understand both the project and what you're trying to achieve. Then let it disagree with you. This prompt asks Fable 5.1 to look at an answer we've already come up with and tell us why it might be wrong.

Give it a try and let me know in the comments what you think of Anthropic's latest model.

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I was pleasantly surprised when I booted up my PS5 and went to the streaming apps tab to find something entirely new called “Live TV on PS5.” At no extra charge, that feature lets me watch a vast collection of movies, TV shows, anime, and gaming-related content (sitting through some mandatory ads and keeping tabs on what’s coming on when are just two minor annoyances I have to deal with here).

After sitting through a few episodes of Death Note and Hunter x Hunter, my brain immediately went to “I gotta find some other free ways to enjoy all the stuff I like to watch, read, and play.” With that money-saving thought in mind, I cooked up this prompt and input it into ChatGPT and Gemini to help me out:

“Recommend 7 of the best free things I can do online based on my hobbies and interests. My hobbies and interests include video games, anime, professional wrestling, comic books, music, and movies.”

Both chatbots recognized my desire to enjoy the more cost-effective parts of my hobbies and interests, so they listed a bunch of alternatives to the paid ones that hit my checking account every month. I took four suggestions from ChatGPT, three recommendations from Gemini, and ended up enjoying all of them.

ChatGPT’s recommended picks

Here are the four best alternative options that ChatGPT provided me with:

• Build your own retro gaming museum with the Internet Archive: This is probably the biggest rabbit hole on the list. The Internet Archive has an enormous collection of digitized software, games, movies, music, books, and other media. Explore old computer games, check out classic gaming magazines, dig through forgotten game soundtracks, explore vintage gaming commercials & TV recordings, and just browse through old gaming history.
• Read manga for free on MANGA Plus: This is the official Shueisha manga service, and its free offerings include popular series such as One Piece, Chainsaw Man, Boruto, Jujutsu Kaisen, Dandadan, and others. Depending on the title, you can read the first and newest chapters for free, while the app also offers a "First Read Free" system for eligible ongoing series.
• Turn your movie obsession into a giant free movie scavenger hunt: Free, ad-supported streaming services have become surprisingly useful for movie fans. Tubi, Pluto TV, and similar services offer legitimate free movies and TV without requiring a paid subscription.
• Make a free "comic book vacation" with digital libraries: If your local library participates, Hoopla can be a fantastic way to read comics, graphic novels, and manga digitally using a library card.

Imagine my surprise when I did some digging in the Internet Archive and was greeted by a smorgasbord of classic arcade games I didn’t know I could play again and digital versions of GamePro I used to read as a wee lad. I spent plenty of time playing the likes of WWF WrestleFest, Astro Blaster, Bloody Roar 2, and other classic games once I got the hang of their controls (this guide definitely did the trick).

To fulfill my desire to read a bunch of manga and comic books for free, I did a deep dive into MANGA Plus and Hoopla—I got to read a few chapters of Sakamoto Days for free and found a nice selection of graphic novels to read once I input the required information for my local participating library to access them.

And thankfully, I found plenty of cult classic films to watch on Tubi—Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, The Last Unicorn, Tank Girl, and Masters of the Universe definitely kept me entertained for a few hours. Having to deal with some commercial breaks to enjoy all that free cinema doesn’t bother me at all.

Gemini’s suggested picks

And here are the three strongest alternative options Gemini gave me:

• Stream Legal Anime on Tubi and Pluto TV: While Crunchyroll requires a paid subscription for many ad-free catalog titles, legal, free, ad-supported platforms like Tubi TV and Pluto TV offer massive anime libraries (both classic titles like Yu Yu Hakusho and Inuyasha and modern series) with no sign-up required.
• Read Golden and Silver Age Comics via Comic Book Plus: Comic Book Plus is the web's largest legal archive of public-domain comic books. You can read thousands of original Golden Age and Silver Age titles, early superhero runs, sci-fi serials, and classic horror anthologies straight through their online viewer.
• Dive Into Webcomics on WEBTOON & Tapas: WEBTOON and Tapas offer tens of thousands of free digital comics across action, fantasy, and superhero genres—many of which feature anime-inspired art styles and have gone on to get official anime adaptations (like Tower of God and Solo Leveling).

Paying for Crunchyroll has become a thing for me because I need my weekly fix of new anime series making their debuts and dropping new episodes. But Gemini’s suggestion of checking out Tubi and Pluto TV’s anime archives gave me the pleasure of tapping back into my nostalgia with marathon viewing sessions of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sonic X, Sailor Moon, and Monster Rancher.

Comic Book Plus offers an easy (and most importantly, free) way to access superhero comic books from before my time, such as Blue Beetle, Captain Marvel, and Moon Girl. WEBTOON surprised me when I came across its Disney-themed offerings, which included a wealth of quality Marvel Comics series runs, plus digital graphic novels connected to the Alien and Predator franchises.

As for Tapas, its readable content lineup didn’t really appeal to me as much as WEBTOON’s did. But I’m sure some of you reading this right now may find something on there to enjoy (it has a pretty robust selection of romance-themed comics, if any of you are into those).

The takeaway

My hobbies are definitely costly—I’m sure I’d be shocked at how much I spend on video games, streaming services, and comic books on a monthly basis. While I’ll never completely abandon the paid options that let me enjoy the latest and greatest pieces of entertainment that fuel my interests, I’ll be sure to make better use of all the free sites and streaming services that do just as much to keep me entertained.

The Internet Archive, Tubi, Pluto TV, Manga Plus, Hoopla, Comic Book Plus, and WEBTOON have a wealth of content for me to peruse without worrying about spending any extra money. Thanks for putting me onto all those freebies, ChatGPT and Gemini.

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Google is testing an “Ask Google from anywhere” experience in Chrome Canary for Windows that can bring up a floating search box even when you are working in another app. Press Alt + Space, and you can ask Google a question without first opening Chrome or switching back to a browser window.

Sound familiar? Google already offers a similar experience through its standalone Google app for Windows, which uses the same Alt + Space shortcut to summon a floating launcher with Search, AI Mode and Google Lens capabilities. Now it appears to be experimenting with bringing that idea directly into Chrome itself.

There is an important caveat: Google has not said the two are connected, and the Chrome version remains a Canary-level experiment rather than a feature rolling out to everyone. But it offers a revealing look at where Google could be taking Chrome next.

What 'Ask Google from anywhere' actually does

Known in development as the “Everywhere Omnibox” under Project Loom, the experiment gives Chrome a floating search interface that can appear on top of whatever else you happen to be doing on your computer.

Instead of opening a Chrome window or new tab to start a search, users can press Alt + Space to bring up the floating bar while working in another app. The shortcut can also be changed through Chrome's settings.

The latest version makes Google's plans for the feature a little clearer. The interface now uses the language “Ask Google from anywhere” and tells users they can share part or all of their screen and ask Google about what they are looking at.

That could eventually make Google Lens and AI-powered search available without forcing you to leave whatever app you are using. However, those pieces aren't all working in the interface yet. Lens and AI Mode buttons aren't currently visible in the bar, making this very much a work in progress.

Having déjà vu?

This idea isn't new. The standalone Google app for Windows already lets users press Alt + Space to bring up Google without first opening a browser.

That app combines traditional Search with AI Mode and Google Lens and can search local files, installed apps, and Google Drive. It can also use Lens to ask questions about something on your screen.

The similarities make Chrome's experiment more interesting. Both give Google a way to appear on top of whatever you are doing in Windows, both use Alt + Space, and both aim to reduce the need to stop what you're doing and head back to a traditional Google search page.

Google has not said that Project Loom is intended to replace its Windows app or that the two projects are directly connected, so it is too early to know how they might fit together.

Still, putting a similar experience inside Chrome would mean people who already have the browser running wouldn't necessarily need a separate Google app to summon Search from elsewhere on their computer.

Bottom line: Chrome is starting to escape the browser

Chrome has traditionally waited for you to open the browser before you can use it. Search in Chrome reverses that relationship by letting Chrome come to you, even while you're working somewhere else.

It also fits with Google's broader push to bring AI features closer to whatever users are already doing rather than making them continually jump between webpages, apps and AI tools.

Whether Google ultimately ships “Ask Google from anywhere” in this form is another question. The feature is still being tested in Canary, and Google could change it significantly or abandon parts of it before it ever reaches the stable version of Chrome.

That said, it's clear that Google wants Search, Lens and eventually its AI tools to be available without making you stop what you're doing and head back to a browser tab.

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As a person who writes about AI for a living, the irony of me being worried about AI taking my job is not lost on me.

I’ve been keeping track of the statistics tied to that worrying trend of humans losing their jobs to AI, which is why I’ve morphed into a realist who realizes my career is in danger of being overtaken by chatbots (seeing certain sites dole out articles with hints pointing at them being written by AI is disheartening). According to sociologist and AI researcher Jeffrey C. Dixon, a YouGov survey he conducted with 1,250 US workers between July 30 and August 4 of 2026 found that only 3% said they had lost a job to AI since 2023.

While that number is a bit reassuring that the job market isn’t in too much danger currently due to AI, these two sobering stats from Tenet are cause for concern: 92 million jobs may be replaced globally by 2030 due to AI and other labor shifts, plus 47% of US workers are at risk of automation over the next decade.

With all that in mind, I approached four chatbots with a question: “Rank the 10 jobs most likely to be replaced by AI next.” I was shocked to see them all pick one role in particular.

The one job all four chatbots agreed on

After asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity the same question, I first took note of the one job that each chatbot listed among its 10 chosen roles that no other chatbot selected.

ChatGPT only mentioned the role of a graphic designer; Gemini only brought up the role of basic market research & financial data analyst; Claude only included broadcast announcers and radio DJs among its picks (I hope that never happens!); Perplexity only selected file clerks & records-management assistants.

As for which job they all agreed on as the one that is most susceptible to AI taking it from humans, it was a role that I’d rather not see filled by nothing but bots over the phone:

• ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity: Customer service representative, Tier-1 customer service representative, customer service representatives and basic customer service representatives.

Perplexity offered the best explanation as to why AI is capable of replacing humans for that position and compressing the responsibilities attached to it: Chatbots and voice agents can answer routine FAQs, check order status, reset accounts, schedule appointments, process simple returns, and triage tickets around the clock.

While that may be true, I’d much rather deal with a human who fulfills such a role. Chase Bank’s most recent commercial, which makes a promise to rely on old-fashioned humans to handle customer service inquiries in the age of AI, showcases the sort of reality I’d prefer to live in.

The other roles that popped up the most among each chatbot

Besides the one role that every chatbot put on its list, a few of them also agreed on the same job that another chatbot didn’t mention at all:

• ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity: Data-entry clerk, data entry clerks & digitization specialists and data-entry keyers & document-processing clerks.
• ChatGPT and Gemini: Telemarketer and basic telemarketers & inbound sales representatives.
• ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity: Bookkeeping/accounting clerk, routine bookkeepers & accounts payable clerks and bookkeeping, payroll, & accounts-payable clerks.
• ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity: Copywriter/content writer, writers & authors and entry-level content writers for routine copy.
• ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity: Paralegal/legal assistant, paralegals & legal researchers and legal secretaries & routine paralegal support.
• ChatGPT and Gemini: Junior software developer, entry-level/junior software developers.
• Gemini and Claude: Translators & localization clerks and interpreters & translators.

At the top of each chatbot’s ranked list, ChatGPT chose customer service representatives, Gemini selected data entry clerks & digitization specialists, Claude picked interpreters & translators and Perplexity settled on data-entry keyers & document-processing clerks.

Final thoughts

I knew the role of writers would pop up on any of the chatbots’ lists for jobs most in danger of being filled by AI and leaving humans behind.

But as someone who’s doing his best to learn about the ins and outs of AI, I’m taking the initiative to acquire an extra skill set that may assist me in the future. As for doctors, dentists, plumbers, electricians, etc., I just can’t envision humanoid robots getting strong and smart enough to completely take over those positions. It’s still alarming to see the jobs ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity brought up on their lists—here’s hoping human ingenuity becomes more appreciated during an age where AI is injected into so many facets of our lives.

Gemini’s closing statement in response to my request summed up my outlook on it and the other chatbots’ picks quite well:

The common factor across all these roles is predictability. Roles reliant on structured rules, data retrieval, standard text generation, or routine transactions are being automated. Conversely, jobs requiring physical dexterity, complex emotional intelligence, high-stakes strategic accountability, or manual trade skills (such as healthcare providers, electricians, plumbers, and senior strategists) remain far more resilient.

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As a self-confessed coffee snob and director of Tom's Guide's The Coffee Lab, I'm always testing out new espresso products. At IFA 2026, I tried nunc., an AI-assisted espresso machine. Yes, an AI espresso machine.

So what does the AI in nunc. actually do? Instead of having to manually dial in your beans, nunc. uses an NFC code to analyze pre-packaged, nunc.-branded beans (you can also use your own beans). Then, the machine analyzes humidity, heat, bean size, and basically every other variable to grind to the perfect particle size. As someone who loves espresso but hates dialing in (why does it take so long sometimes?), I was excited to try this out. But as someone skeptical of AI at best, I had my reservations.

I didn't want nunc. to take away the art of making coffee. That's so human and personalized that it's impossible for AI to copy. Luckily, though, nunc. proved me wrong. Here's what happened when I tried it.

How does nunc. work?

As I mentioned above, every nunc.-branded bean hopper has an NFC code, exactly like a Nespresso Vertuo pod. The machine reads this NFC code to analyze the roast date, roast type, bean type, and processing type, and work out precisely how to grind those specific beans. Then, it analyzes the environment — heat, humidity — to finalize the optimal grind.

This means the grind size will change from morning to evening, or even hour to hour. If you have an espresso at 6 a.m., when the air in your house is dewy and humid, the grind size will be different from your 1 p.m. espresso, sun shining overhead, A/C running.

Of course, if you have the companion app, you can input information about any beans.

How is nunc. different from a normal espresso machine?

In terms of functionality, nunc. works just like any other espresso machine. Think about it like this: it's almost like a superautomatic — Jura, De'Longhi Rivelia — but a totally manual machine. All it does for you is choose the ideal grind size. Honestly, dialling in beans is the worst part of espresso making for me, so I'm completely on board.

You tamp, insert the portafilter into the grouphead, and can pre-infuse the beans yourself. You can either steam the milk automatically (like the Breville Bambino Plus), or do it manually (any other manual espresso machine).

You dispose of the spent grounds yourself; you empty the drip tray yourself. The only part that is "AI" is the grinder.

How does nunc.'s "AI" coffee taste?

nunc. doesn't make "different" coffee. You won't have one sip and go, "Woah, I can totally taste the AI, dude!" It honestly tastes like a human barista was there every step of the way... because there was. You make the coffee.

Here's a shot of my oat flat white.

It looks like a normal coffee. The taste was clean, polished, with a soft, dark-chocolate-like bitterness rounding it out. I wanted a little more fruit, acid, and funk — I like a funky coffee — but this was likely because I didn't choose my beans.

The milk texture was a little too bubbly for me; I like mine more velvety. Like any other espresso machine, though, you can adjust milk texture easily. Just don't aerate it as much.

I expected to dislike it because I'm extremely particular about my coffee, but this went down a treat.

Where can I get nunc.?

So, now's the time for the bad news. As I'm writing this, nunc. is only available in Germany. If you happen to be in Germany, nunc. costs €2,699. For an extra €149, you get a grinder, the machine, a spring-loaded tamper, a milk jug, a brush, and a tamping mat.

That price equates to around $3,135, which makes this one of the most expensive home espresso machines I've ever seen. There's the $3,000 Breville Dual Boiler, but the nunc. out-prices many of the prosumer models like the Lelit Bianca ($2,999) and Fellow Espresso Series 1 ($1,499).

nunc.'s representative informed me there is no release date for the U.S., U.K., E.U., Canada, Australia — basically any non-German markets. Hopefully, it won't be five years before we're seeing nunc. in our kitchens. I would love to play around with this machine myself.

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