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Beginners in AI
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 Blamed for 4,000 Layoffs at Block, But the Real Story Is More Complicated
TLDR: Jack Dorsey just fired nearly half of Block's 10,000 workers, blaming AI tools, and says most companies will do the same thing within a year.
The Story: Block, the company behind Cash App and Square, is cutting more than 4,000 employees, shrinking from over 10,000 workers to under 6,000. CEO Jack Dorsey said "intelligence tools" have changed what it means to run a company, and that smaller teams using AI can now do more and do it better. He said he chose one big round of cuts instead of dragging it out over months. Block's stock jumped about 25% right after the news, showing Wall Street loved the move. Dorsey predicted that most companies will make similar changes within the next year. He insisted the company isn't in trouble, pointing to growing profits and more customers.
Its Significance: This is the biggest AI-related layoff we've seen from a single company, and it raises a big question: how much of this is really about AI? The truth is probably a mix of three things. Some of it could be what OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently called "AI washing", where companies blame AI for cuts they'd make anyway. Some is likely plain overstaffing, since Block nearly tripled its workforce during the pandemic years. Elon Musk famously bought Twitter from Dorsey and cut about half the staff well before today's AI tools existed. And some is genuinely about where the technology is right now, where smaller teams really can do more with AI help. Whatever the reason, if you work at a company with more than a few hundred employees, Dorsey's prediction that your company is next should get your attention.
QUICK TAKES
The story: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company won't let the Department of War use its AI for mass surveillance of Americans or fully autonomous weapons without human oversight. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given Anthropic a Friday deadline to comply, threatening to label the company a "supply chain risk" or force compliance through the Defense Production Act.
Your takeaway: Amodei pointed out the threats are contradictory: one calls Anthropic a security risk, the other says its AI is essential to national security. This is the first time we've seen a major AI company publicly refuse a direct military demand, and how it plays out could set the rules for how AI gets used in warfare.
The story: Burger King is rolling out "Patty," an OpenAI-powered voice AI that lives inside employees' headsets. It helps with meal prep questions and tracks keywords like "welcome," "please," and "thank you" to measure service patterns. It's being tested in 500 stores now, with plans to expand to all 7,000 U.S. locations by the end of 2026.
Your takeaway: This is part of a growing trend of AI as a workplace co-pilot and observer. Instead of replacing workers, companies are putting AI alongside them to watch, coach, and report. Whether workers see Patty as helpful support or a digital boss watching their every word will say a lot about where workplace AI goes next.
The story: Google released Nano Banana 2, which combines the quality of its Pro model with much faster speeds. The original Nano Banana went viral when it launched in August, and this update adds real-time web knowledge, better text in images, and support for resolutions up to 4K.
Your takeaway: Nano Banana was the biggest technical advance in AI image creation in 2025, making high-quality image generation accessible to everyday users for the first time. This update closes the gap between speed and quality even further. If you haven't tried creating AI images yet, this is the easiest place to start since it's built right into Google's Gemini.
TOOLS ON OUR RADAR
🐧 OpenPanel Free and Open Source: A powerful product analytics tool that combines simple website traffic monitoring with advanced behavioral tracking like conversion funnels and user retention while keeping your data fully private.(Alternative to Mixpanel)
🎨 Looka Freemium: An artificial intelligence powered graphic design platform that allows you to instantly generate professional company logos and complete brand kits based on your stylistic preferences.
🌍 Rask AI Freemium: A powerful localization tool that automatically translates and dubs your existing video content into dozens of different languages while preserving the original speakers voice and tone.
📊 Numerous AI Freemium: A smart spreadsheet companion that works directly inside Excel and Google Sheets to extract text categorize data and generate complex formulas using simple conversational prompts.
TRENDING
Bezos' $30B AI Lab Eyes Tens of Billions More to Remake Manufacturing - Jeff Bezos' Project Prometheus, his first CEO role since leaving Amazon, is raising tens of billions more to buy factories and industrial companies he believes AI will disrupt, with talks underway with sovereign wealth funds and JPMorgan.
US Arrests OnlyFake Operator Accused of Selling Over 10,000 AI-Generated Fake IDs - A 27-year-old Ukrainian man pleaded guilty to running OnlyFake, a site that used AI to generate realistic fake passports, driver's licenses, and Social Security cards that could bypass bank and crypto exchange verification systems, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto.
Microsoft Launches Copilot Tasks, an AI To-Do List That Does Itself - Microsoft's new Copilot Tasks feature works in the background with its own computer and browser to actually complete tasks for you, from booking appointments to managing emails, marking a shift from AI that talks to AI that acts.
New Scientist Writer Changes Mind on AI After Week of Vibe Coding - A longtime AI skeptic found real value in coding tools like ChatGPT Codex and Claude Code, but argues the real problem is how AI companies have packaged chatbots to be confident and agreeable instead of honest and cautious.
Researchers Want to Fix AI's "Jagged Intelligence" Problem - AI models can solve math olympiad problems one moment and fail basic Connect Four the next, and a researcher argues the fix is giving AI structured knowledge rules instead of making it guess everything from data patterns.
MIT Professors Push for "Pro-Worker AI" in New Paper - Nobel Prize-winning economists from MIT argue the U.S. isn't on a path to prevent the worst impacts of AI on workers, and propose building AI that supports human expertise (like a calculator helps a mathematician) instead of replacing it.
TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini)
🌅 Build a morning routine planner that lets you add timed activity blocks, set your wake-up time, and see exactly when your morning will be done.
Build a morning routine planner as a single-file React app.
Requirements:
- Add timed blocks with an emoji picker, activity name, and duration slider (5-60 min)
- Wake-up time slider (4 AM to 10 AM)
- Show a timeline with calculated start times for each block
- Show total routine length with a color indicator:
green under 60 min, amber 60
- Display the estimated finish time
- Dark amber colo
- Use React 18 + Babel via CDN in one HTML file — no build tools neededWhat this does:
This is time blocking without the complexity. Add your morning activities, slide each one to the right duration, and the app calculates exactly when you’ll be done. Move the wake-up slider and your whole schedule shifts. Green means you’re under an hour, amber up to 90 minutes, red means something should probably go.
What this looks like:
WHERE WE STAND(based on today’s news)
✅ AI Can Now: Run in the background with its own computer and browser to complete real-world tasks like booking appointments, canceling subscriptions, and drafting email replies (Microsoft Copilot Tasks)
❌ Still Can't: Be trusted to make life-or-death military decisions without human oversight, according to both the AI company that built it and the researchers who study it (Anthropic/Pentagon standoff)
✅ AI Can Now: Pull real-time information from the web to create accurate images of specific real-world places and products, with legible text, in seconds (Google Nano Banana 2)
❌ Still Can't: Consistently avoid basic errors, sometimes solving advanced math problems while failing at Connect Four in the same session (jagged intelligence problem)
FROM THE WEB
RECOMMENDED LISTENING/READING/WATCHING
In a future where human consciousness can be digitized and transferred between bodies, ex-soldier Takeshi Kovacs is brought back to life to solve a murder. It's a gritty, noir-soaked sci-fi thriller that asks hard questions about what happens to identity, inequality, and mortality when technology lets the rich live forever. The world-building is incredible, the writing is superb, and the action doesn't let up.
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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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