The Blog Experiment | Technology Nonsense and Internet Tripe

California’s Senate Judiciary Committee, with bipartisan support, approved Senate Bill 243 this month, requiring that AI companies “protect users from the addictive, isolating, and influential aspects of artificial intelligence chatbots.” It is the first bill of its kind in the U.S.   On the day of the bill’s hearing, its author, U.S. Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Calif.), held a press conference where he was joined by Megan Garcia, who last year sued the AI company Character.ai, alleging that its chatbot had played a role in her son’s suicide. Garcia testified in support of the bill, stating that such chatbots are “inherently dangerous” and can lead to inappropriate conversations or self-harm. “Technological innovation is crucial, but our children cannot be used as guinea pigs to test the safety of new products,” said Padilla.  Similar bills are currently working their way through legislatures in several states. These are vital steps in the right direction. Comparable legislation is urgently needed nationwide.   What is at stake? Our kids’ safety and emotional development and our capacity for critical thought — perhaps even our democracy.  A 2024 Pew Research poll found that nearly half of Americans reported using AI several times a week, with one in four using it “almost constantly.” A 2025 Gallup survey revealed that nearly all Americans rely on products that involve AI, even though most aren’t aware of it.  New research is beginning to illuminate the significant consequences. A 2025 study published in Societies found “a very strong negative correlation between subjects’…Reclaiming critical thinking in the Age of AI  

California’s Senate Judiciary Committee, with bipartisan support, approved Senate Bill 243 this month, requiring that AI companies “protect users from the addictive, isolating, and influential aspects of artificial intelligence chatbots.” It is the first bill of its kind in the U.S.   On the day of the bill’s hearing, its author, U.S. Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Calif.), held a press conference where he was joined by Megan Garcia, who last year sued the AI company Character.ai, alleging that its chatbot had played a role in her son’s suicide. Garcia testified in support of the bill, stating that such chatbots are “inherently dangerous” and can lead to inappropriate conversations or self-harm. “Technological innovation is crucial, but our children cannot be used as guinea pigs to test the safety of new products,” said Padilla.  Similar bills are currently working their way through legislatures in several states. These are vital steps in the right direction. Comparable legislation is urgently needed nationwide.   What is at stake? Our kids’ safety and emotional development and our capacity for critical thought — perhaps even our democracy.  A 2024 Pew Research poll found that nearly half of Americans reported using AI several times a week, with one in four using it “almost constantly.” A 2025 Gallup survey revealed that nearly all Americans rely on products that involve AI, even though most aren’t aware of it.  New research is beginning to illuminate the significant consequences. A 2025 study published in Societies found “a very strong negative correlation between subjects’…Reclaiming critical thinking in the Age of AI  

Bill Gates recently predicted that artificial intelligence will be as good as any doctor within the next decade — and may even replace the need to see doctors.   That is not just wrong. It is reckless. We are at a turning point in healthcare. AI holds enormous potential, but the way we talk about it matters. In a moment where the narrative swings between unchecked hype and dystopian paranoia, we need to find the middle ground focusing on real problems and solving them with the right tools.  First, AI is not here to take over clinical care. It is here to support it. And if we frame the future of medicine around replacing physicians instead of empowering them, we risk missing the most important opportunity healthcare has had in decades.  Gates was right about one thing: AI has the potential to expand access to high-quality medical guidance. For people in remote or underserved areas, AI-powered tools could help triage symptoms or offer early insights.   But that’s a far cry from replacing the role of trained physicians. Medicine isn’t just about information. It’s also about context, judgment, empathy and experience.  The danger lies in assuming that because an AI can deliver facts, it can replace care. That kind of thinking leads to over-reliance, which then leads to underinvestment in the clinical workforce and ultimately worse outcomes.  Doctors are not a bug in the system. They are the system. And AI, when used correctly, makes them better. Faster. More informed. Less burned out.  This isn’t speculative. AI and physicians are already working side by…AI won’t replace doctors — it will upgrade them

Threads, Meta’s alternative to X, formerly Twitter, had almost everything it needed to succeed. It’s backed by one of the biggest of the Big Tech companies. It’s directly integrated with Instagram, the mega popular photo sharing app. With all its powers combined, Threads was able to grow to 100 million users in just 5 days.However, there was one crucial element that the platform was missing: A ‘dot com’ domain name.But, as of April 24, Meta has solved Threads’ URL problem. Threads.com now officially points users to the web version of the Threads platform. “Today, we’re moving from Threads.net to Threads.com,” Meta said in an announcement posted on the company blog alongside feature updates to the platform.As Elon Musk continues to put his unique stamp on X, many liberal users are seeking out new social media homes. X competitors like Bluesky and Threads appear to have won out as the official Twitter replacements, although neither have come close to achieving critical mass.Threads finally using Threads.com as its official URL won’t beat out X alone, but studies have shown that internet users still use and trust .com domain names more than any other domain extension. This move from Threads.net to Threads.com will only help the platform.Threads originally launched in July 2023 strictly as a mobile app. One month later, Threads rolled out the web version of the social media platform. However, Threads on the web was previously located at Threads.net.Why? At the time, Meta simply did not own the dot-com domain. Plenty…Its official: Metas Threads is using Threads.com domain name

President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that aims to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into America’s classrooms.   “The basic idea of this executive order is to ensure that we properly train the workforce of the future by ensuring that school children, young Americans, are adequately trained in AI tools, so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now into the future, as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal,” said Will Scharf, White House staff secretary. Although the exact text of the order has not been released, The Washington Post reported on a pre-decisional draft that said the president wants schools to partner with the private sector to implement the technology into school programs.   The order would instruct Education Secretary Linda McMahon to prioritize federal funds for training teachers and administrators in how to use AI for their benefit but also to incorporate it into all subjects.   “AI is where it seems to be at,” Trump said during the signing. An AI education task force would be created to encourage federal agencies to partner with the private sector with the goal of teaching students “foundational AI literacy and critical thinking skills,” according to the Post.   AI has taken classrooms by storm over the last few years, with both benefits and risks to educators and students.   Schools have already begun partnering with organizations to teach educators and students how to use AI responsibly.   Downsides to the technology include concerns of cheating…Trump signs executive order incorporating AI into classrooms

President Trump signed multiple executive orders on Wednesday targeting the country’s education system, from discipline in K-12 schools to how universities are accredited.   Regarding school discipline, Trump signed an order in the Oval Office intended to undo policies from former Presidents Obama and Biden that Will Scharf, White House staff secretary, said “created issues in the classroom for teachers and students alike.”  Behavioral issues have been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is unclear how much influence the federal government will be able to have over individual school policies on this issue.   “President Trump is taking historic and commonsense action to boost school safety standards. Disciplinary decisions should be based solely on students’ behavior and actions,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.   Another Wednesday order seeks to further integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into American classrooms.   “The basic idea of this executive order is to ensure that we properly train the workforce of the future by ensuring that school children, young Americans, are adequately trained in AI tools, so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now into the future, as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal,” said Scharf.  In a potential hit to higher education, Trump signed an executive order targeting the college accreditation process.   College accreditation ensures a university can access financial aid, but, Scharf said, “many of those third-party accreditors have relied on sort of woke ideology to accredit universities, instead of accrediting based on merit and…Trump signs executive orders on school discipline, education reform

Students won’t be using Pinterest during class — or, at least, they will be heavily discouraged from doing so.The social media app is experimenting with a prompt that will encourage American and Canadian users between the ages of 13 (the minimum age for account holders) and 17 to close the app and pause notifications during typical school hours (Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.). Pinterest confirmed in an email to Mashable that the prompt will reach “millions” of school-age users, and the wide-scale experiment is intended to better inform the app’s teams. This comes after Pinterest CEO Bill Ready announced his support for the Kids Online Safety Act and phone-free school policies in the Washington Post.”Focus is a beautiful thing,” the prompt says, according to the Verge. “Stay in the moment by putting Pinterest down and pausing notifs [sic] until the school bell rings.” SEE ALSO: Instagram will restrict teens from going Live, as Teen Accounts expand to Facebook and Messenger Pinterest also announced on Tuesday a partnership with the International Society for Technology in Education to develop digital citizenship and well-being action plans through newly established Digital Innovation Wellbeing Task Forces.”At Pinterest, we believe that schools can take advantage of all that technology has to offer students, while minimizing the harms and distractions,” Wanji Walcott, Pinterest’s chief legal and business affairs officer, told the Verge. “Tech companies need to work together with teachers, parents, and policymakers to build solutions that ensure in the hands of our students,…Pinterest wants teens to log off during school hours

Bluesky is introducing new ways to recognize genuine, verified accounts on the social media platform. According to an official update on Bluesky’s blog, certain accounts will now get a blue checkmark next to their names. Bluesky will also let “select independent organizations” verify accounts of their employees directly, with one example being the New York Times which can now issue blue ticks to its journalists. SEE ALSO: NFL bars teams from using Bluesky Users will be able to see which organization granted the mark to a user by tapping on a verified account’s blue check.The new scheme echoes the blue checkmark verification system that Twitter had before Elon Musk bought the platform, renamed it X, and made checkmarks available to anyone who paid for a Twitter Blue subscription. Bluesky did not share exact criteria as to which accounts can get a blue checkmark, besides saying it will proactively verify “authentic and notable” accounts. Featured Video For You Our favorite robots at CES 2025 This is another layer of verification on top of Bluesky’s verified domain system, which allows individuals and organizations to set their domain as their user name. This is still available to all users. As for the blue checks, Bluesky said in its update the platform is currently not accepting direct applications for verification; instead, it will launch a request form for notable and authentic accounts which are interested in becoming verified and/or trusted verifiers.Bluesky adds blue checks for verification, like the Twitter of old

Dateline: Bangkok, 22nd April 2025.At this year’s Davos — or more properly the 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland — it was impossible to escape AI. Every conversation — whether it was about hydrogen production or loyalty schemes, horse training or ethical investment — touched on AI. Central to these discussions was the shift toward “agentic AI”, which has real implications for the world of commerce and therefore finance.Share Read moreThe Dawn of A-Commerce

It’s an open secret that some teens circumvent social media platform age restrictions by simply giving the wrong birth date when they sign up. Now Instagram will use artificial intelligence in order to identify those users and route them back into age-appropriate “teen accounts,” according to an Instagram blog post published Monday. Instagram already uses AI to determine age, but the platform will begin testing the technology’s ability to proactively find teens on accounts with an adult birthday listed. Instagram will then place them in its teen account settings, which have a number of safety features. SEE ALSO: Instagram will restrict teens from going Live, as Teen Accounts expand to Facebook and Messenger Recently, Instagram began restricting teens under 16 from going live. It also now requires teens to obtain parental consent before they can turn off content moderation filters designed to blur nude images in direct messages. Though Instagram said it’s working to ensure the accuracy of its AI technology, it is giving users the option to change the restrictiveness of teen account settings should it make a mistake about their age. Instagram also announced that it will begin sending notifications to parents who have an Instagram account about how they can discuss with their children why it’s important to provide their correct age to the platform. Meta, Instagram’s parent company, has been sued by plaintiffs, including the state of California, who argue that the company hasn’t sufficiently protected minors from harm, or warned them of potential dangers related…Instagram will use AI to identify teens using adult accounts