👧🏽 Good news for parents, bad news for teenagers
A panel of experts handed the EU a formal recommendation this week: ban children under 13 from social media entirely, and require platforms to remove infinite scroll for teens 13-18. The European Commission is expected to turn this into a law proposal in September. More than 20 countries are already moving on age restrictions. If you have kids, know that this is moving faster than most people realize. Parents, get ready to say “well, it’s not me who’s limiting your addiction, take it up with the EU.”
🙉 Like kids, we choose not to hear it
A statement titled "We Must Act Now" was signed by nearly 200 economists and researchers this week — including 15 Nobel laureates, the chief economists of OpenAI and Anthropic, Eric Schmidt, etc. The core warning: AI effects "could be larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame." They're calling for better measurement of AI's spread and policies that complement humans rather than replace them. No practical solution in place yet but I guess it’s a start. AI is playing ‘catch me if you can’ and for now, we’re lagging behind.
📺 YouTube, we need to talk
YouTube's Ask YouTube conversational search started rolling out to US users this week — no Premium required. Instead of typing keywords, you describe a situation: "what to watch to wind down before bed" or "how to teach a kid to ride a bike." It searches both long-form videos and Shorts, groups results by subheadings, and handles follow-up questions. Wait, I thought we could already do that ... Oh well, I guess it just worked already as a simple search.
🫥 You can run but you can’t hide
Avoiding AI exposure is difficult, nay, impossible. Deleting ChatGPT doesn't help when AI is already embedded in Outlook, Google Docs, and your HR software. Siri is now Siri AI, and .ai domains are selling like hot cakes. More and more UK adults say that AI carries more risks than benefits. Privacy is the biggest concern and rightly so. How long can we observe from the sidelines or are we all being pushed into the game whether we like it or not?
📱 Doomscrolling under control
It deserves a more modern name but let’s see past that: HyperTexting is a new app built by a tech industry veteran who wanted to bring RSS back in a form people would actually use (I’m listening!). You follow any feed — news outlets, independent journalists, newsletters, podcasters — and it shows up in a reverse-chronological timeline that looks like Instagram. No ads. No algorithm. No AI slop. I’m giving it a spin and so far I really like it. There's also a Safari extension to add any site you stumble across. Dumping doomscrolling, your days are numbered!
🌏 Forget about the thing you never heard about
Did you know that OpenAI launched it’s own browser called Atlas? Me neither. And honestly, I can’t handle another bookmark syncing and realizing that some websites only work in Chrome, others in Firefox and AI only in Atlas. Well, never mind, Atlas is sunsetting in August. What are we missing? Apparently it took 10 minutes to add three items to an Amazon cart. It avoided visiting websites that had sued OpenAI. It had prompt injection vulnerabilities baked in. OpenAI is replacing it with ChatGPT Work, a new office software suite. File under: expensive lesson
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Till next time,
Jana
