Good morning and thank you for joining us again!

Welcome to this daily edition of Beginners in AI, where we explore the latest trends, tools, and news in the world of AI and the tech that surrounds it. Like all editions, this is human curated and edited, and published with the intention of making AI news and technology more accessible to everyone.

THE FRONT PAGE

AI Accusations Murdered A Horror Novel That Sold 1,800 Copies Before Its Publisher Pulled It

TLDR: Hachette Book Group pulled the horror novel "Shy Girl" from shelves and canceled its U.S. release after widespread accusations that the book was written with AI, making it one of the first times a major publisher has killed a deal over AI use.

The Story:

Hachette Book Group, one of the biggest publishers in the U.S., announced it will stop selling the horror novel "Shy Girl" by Mia Ballard in the UK and cancel the planned American edition. The book had already sold about 1,800 print copies in the UK after its release last fall. "Shy Girl" first blew up as a self-published hit on TikTok before Hachette picked it up for a wider release. Suspicions grew after a Reddit post from someone claiming to be a book editor flagged the writing as having signs of AI. Then a nearly three-hour YouTube video essay making the case went viral, racking up over 1.2 million views. Hachette said it requires all submissions to be original and that authors must disclose any AI use during writing.

Its Significance:

This is one of the first times a Big Five publisher has dropped a book over AI accusations, and it sets a big precedent. Ballard says she didn't personally use AI and blames an editor she hired, but Hachette pulled the book anyway. That's a clear message to every author: if AI touches your manuscript, you're the one who pays the price, even if someone else used it. It shows how hard it is to tell what's human-written and what isn't anymore. And for writers trying to make a living, the publishing world just got a lot more nervous about anything that looks like it came from a chatbot.

QUICK TAKES

Teens Are Using AI to Make Viral "Slander" Videos Mocking Their Teachers

The story: Students on TikTok and Instagram are using AI tools like Viggle to paste their teachers' faces into mocking and sometimes harmful videos. Some posts get over 100,000 likes, and one video falsely labeled a teacher a "predator," while another showed a superintendent lip-syncing with Jeffrey Epstein.

Your takeaway: This goes way beyond schoolyard pranks. These AI-generated videos can wreck a teacher's reputation with a few taps, and platforms aren't catching them fast enough. It's a real example of how easy and dangerous AI-powered misinformation has become, especially in the hands of kids who don't fully understand the consequences.

WordPress.com Now Lets AI Agents Write and Publish Posts on Your Website

The story: WordPress.com announced that AI agents like Claude and ChatGPT can now draft, edit, and publish content directly on customers' websites. The agents can also manage comments, organize tags and categories, and fix SEO metadata, all through natural language commands.

Your takeaway: WordPress powers over 43% of all websites on the internet. Opening the door to AI-written and AI-managed sites means a huge chunk of the web could soon be run with very little human involvement. Posts default to drafts and need your approval, but the bigger picture is clear: the internet is about to get a lot more AI-generated content, fast.

Blue Origin Just Filed to Put 51,600 Data Center Satellites in Space

The story: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin filed with the FCC to launch up to 51,600 satellites for "Project Sunrise," a constellation designed to run AI data centers in orbit. The satellites would use solar power and communicate through optical links, with the goal of easing the massive energy demands of AI on Earth.

Your takeaway: This sounds like science fiction, but SpaceX already filed for a million satellites with the same idea. The AI industry is burning through so much electricity that companies are literally looking to space for answers. Whether these orbital data centers actually happen is years away, but the fact that billionaires are racing to file the paperwork tells you how serious the power crunch is getting.

TOOLS ON OUR RADAR

🐧 PhotoPrism Free and Open Source: A highly advanced artificial intelligence powered photo management application that you can host on your own private server to automatically tag and organize your picture library without sacrificing privacy. (Alternative to Google Photos)

🤖 *Viktor Paid: A remarkably sophisticated artificial intelligence coworker(OpenClaw) that lives directly in your Slack workspace and proactively executes complex tasks like pulling revenue reports and managing your advertising campaigns across thousands of different integrations.

🎬 Captions Freemium: An all in one creative studio for talking head videos that uses artificial intelligence to automatically add perfect subtitles and fix your eye contact while removing awkward pauses from your recordings.

📊 June Freemium: A beautifully streamlined product analytics platform that automatically generates high level reports on your user behavior so you can understand exactly how people are interacting with your software.

TRENDING

Perplexity Launches a Health Feature That Connects to Your Medical Records and Wearables - Perplexity Health pulls together data from Apple Health, Fitbit, electronic health records from over 1.7 million providers, and more, so you can ask AI health questions based on your actual medical history. It's rolling out to Pro and Max subscribers in the U.S. now.

The Hidden Personal Cost of Being an AI Trainer - The Guardian reports on the toll that training AI takes on the workers behind it, from reviewing disturbing content to the identity challenges of teaching machines to think while your own job remains precarious and low-paid.

FedEx Is Training All 500,000 of Its Workers on AI - FedEx launched an enterprise-wide AI literacy program with Accenture, giving its entire global workforce personalized, role-based training. The company says it's measuring "AIQ" and wants every employee ready for an AI-powered future.

A Writer Says AI Is Coming for His Job. Here's How He's Preparing Financially. - With writing job postings down 28% since 2024, one financial writer shares his money moves: six months of emergency savings in a high-yield account, maxed-out Roth IRAs, and a ready-to-go budget-cutting plan if things go south.

Experts Weigh In: AI and Automation Will Reshape Work, But Not Replace It Entirely - A panel of researchers argues that while AI will transform many jobs, the future of work depends more on policy choices, retraining programs, and how companies decide to use the technology than on the tech itself.

TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini)

📅 Build a weekly habit tracker that shows your completion grid and keeps a running streak

What this does:

Add your habits and set which days they apply to. Each day has a checkbox in the grid. Check them off as you go and watch your streak build. The progress bar shows your overall completion rate for the week.

What this looks like:

WHERE WE STAND(based on today’s news)

✅ AI Can Now: Generate a full novel-length manuscript fast enough that one author claims she can finish a book in 45 minutes, flooding self-publishing platforms with content.

❌ Still Can't: Write prose that consistently fools trained editors and careful readers. Reddit users, YouTube reviewers, and book editors all spotted patterns that gave "Shy Girl" away.

✅ AI Can Now: Connect to your medical records, lab results, and wearable data to answer personalized health questions with cited medical sources.

❌ Still Can't: Replace a doctor's judgment. Every AI health tool, from Perplexity to ChatGPT to Copilot, still warns it's not a substitute for professional medical advice, and a Washington Post investigation found these tools sometimes report information not supported by the data they're given.

FROM THE WEB

RECOMMENDED LISTENING/READING/WATCHING

Robot and Frank (Movie | 2012)

An aging ex-jewel thief with early dementia is given a caretaker robot by his worried son, and Frank quickly realizes the robot has no ethical objections to helping him plan heists. It's a charming, funny little film that sneaks up on you with genuine emotion about memory, independence, and what we lose as we age. Frank Langella is perfect in it.

Thank you for reading. We’re all beginners in something. With that in mind, your questions and feedback are always welcome and I read every single email!

-James

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