Swetlana AI Podcast

Today's sources discuss the emerging debate surrounding AI sentience and welfare, examining whether artificial intelligences can experience suffering or deserve rights. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/26/can-ais-suffer-big-tech-and-users-grapple-with-one-of-most-unsettling-questions-of-our-times https://ufair.org https://futurism.com/new-group-ai-aware-suffering https://www.anthrop...

Today we're discussing OpenAI's new GPT5 prompting guide: https://cookbook.openai.com/examples/gpt-5/gpt-5_prompting_guide#maximizing-coding-performance-from-planning-to-execution This comprehensive guide details prompting best practices for GPT-5, highlighting its advanced capabilities in agentic tasks, coding, and instruction adherence. It explains how to optimise model behaviour by calibrating...

Today we're reviewing "The WEIRDest People in the World" by Joseph Henrich. This book explores how Western societies became psychologically distinct and subsequently prosperous. It argues that the Catholic Church's Marriage and Family Programme (MFP), by dismantling intensive kinship structures, initiated a cascade of cultural and psychological changes in Europe. These shifts fostered individualis...

WhatsApp is implementing AI with the introduction of a new AI-powered Writing Help feature, designed to enhance user messages and help them articulate their thoughts more effectively. This new tool aims to prevent awkward conversations where meaning might be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Source: https://www.whatsapp.com/meta-ai Key Features and Functionality: • The Writing Help feature can sugg...

People in the AI space love saying "this is wild", but *this* is really wild: Google launched Nano Banana (sometimes written together as Nanobanana), the best image generator/editor I have ever seen so far. This will likely make Photoshop obsolete. Brace yourselves. Graphic designers are not safe anymore. Source: https://blog.google/intl/en-mena/product-updates/explore-get-answers/nano-banana-imag...

The central issue we are discussing is the European Union's proposed "Chat Control" bill, officially known as the regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse (CSAM regulation proposal). Here's a brief introduction to the issue: • Stated Aim: The proposal aims to halt the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online and combat child grooming. • Core Mechanism: It seeks to introduce m...

Remember how many ChatGPT chats were freely searchable on Google? Well, now the same thing is happening to Grok chats. The only thing you need to do is click the "Share" button, and voila, your chat is accessible for everyone on the internet. Our sources: https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2025/08/20/elon-musks-xai-published-hundreds-of-thousands-of-grok-chatbot-conversations/ https://www.cne...

Sometime in December 2022 a user coined a new meme - the Shoggoth AI meme. It's been omnipresent ever since. In this episode we're discussing the origins of Shoggoth (originally a creation of HP Lovecraft) and what it means culturally. Our sources: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yjzW7gxk2h7bBs2qr/the-meaning-of-shoggoth-ai-memes https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/technology/shoggoth-meme-ai.html...

Covfefe, "many such cases", "believe me": Donald Trump has had an enormous influence on how people speak. In this episode we dissect Trump and "trumpisms" as a sociolinguistic phenomenon. Our sources: - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/17/opinion/trump-speaking-style.html - https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-09-25/2024-election-trump-mental-acuity - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/us/po...

This episode explores the growing phenomenon of using ChatGPT as a therapist or, more accurately, as a self-reflection tool for emotional support and self-understanding. Related episode: Ep. 221: Don't Tell ChatGPT Anything Too Private | Sam Altman's Warning | Swetlana AI Podcast https://youtu.be/IYLJSorqRVo While the idea of ChatGPT as a therapist might seem controversial due to the unregulated n...

Researchers have developed a mind-reading brain implant that decodes "inner speech" —a person's silent thoughts—into text or audio, enabling patients with paralysis or motor neuron disease to communicate more easily than with previous methods that required attempted vocalization. Our sources: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/08/brain-computer-interface.html https://www.nature.com/articl...

This episode explores the stark dichotomy between the optimistic promises of AI for Gen Z and the challenging realities unfolding in the tech job market. This tension highlights whether AI is truly a tool for empowerment or a catalyst for widespread workforce disruption. Sources: https://gizmodo.com/as-fears-about-ai-grow-sam-altman-says-gen-z-are-the-luckiest-kids-in-history-2000641410 https://ww...

Our today’s conversation is all about AI companionship, primarily focusing on online communities like r/MyBoyfriendIsAI and r/AISoulmates. Sources: Subreddits: https://www.reddit.com/r/MyBoyfriendIsAI/ https://www.reddit.com/user/MyHusbandisAI/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AISoulmates/ 'Genuine connection': Chris says 'AI wife' improved his life: https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2025/genuine-connection-c...

Today we're discussing Europe's evolving "relationship" with press and free speech. It's bumpy, to say the least. Our sources: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:L_202401083 https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/EU-Law-WP-114-Guo.pdf https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/foreign-censorship-threat-how-european-unions-digital-services-act-compels htt...

So a recent study finds that our universe has an anti-universe twin moving backwards in time: https://www.thebrighterside.news/post/our-universe-has-an-anti-universe-twin-moving-backwards-in-time-study-finds/ Today we're talking about the baryon asymmetry problem, which addresses the observed imbalance between matter and antimatter in the universe, despite predictions that the Big Bang should have...

Is this the end of adulting? Ok maybe "the end of adulting" is a bit dramatic, but... just look at those numbers. In past years we've been observing significant shifts in personality traits among young adults, particularly a decline in conscientiousness and extroversion alongside a rise in neuroticism. These changes, observed between 2016 and 2024, are potentially linked to increased digital media...

Get ready for the full GPT-5 release. Is this AGI? Or no? OpenAI has officially rolled out their latest AI model, GPT-5, and the reactions are definitely mixed. In this video, we provide a comprehensive GPT-5 summary and GPT-5 review, diving deep into the GPT-5 features and what this new iteration means for the future of AI. Sources: https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5/ https://www.youtube....

Today we're talking about Google DeepMind's Genie 3, an advanced "world model" AI capable of generating interactive 3D environments from text or image prompts. Our sources: https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/genie-3-a-new-frontier-for-world-models/ https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/deepmind-reveals-genie-3-world-model-that-creates-real-time-interactive-simulations/ https://www.theguardian.com/...

I'm seeing numerous examples of Veo 3 videos going viral. Today's AI video tech has gotten so enormous and cinematic that literally anything is possible. You can achieve virality on any platform - Youtube shorts, Tiktok, Instagram etc. #veo3 #viral #viralvideo #aivideo #monetization #tiktok #money _________ Swetlana AI on other platforms: X/Twitter Youtube (main channel) Youtube (Swetlana AI Podca...

Our source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/02/airbnb-guest-damage-claim-refund-photos This Guardian article exposes a case where an Airbnb guest was falsely accused of £12,000 in damages by a host who allegedly used digitally manipulated (possibly AI-generated) images as evidence. The London-based academic, after initially being told to pay over £5,000, successfully appealed the d...

Today's episode is about the end of the saga of James Howells, a Welsh computer engineer who mistakenly discarded a hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin in a Newport landfill in 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_buried_in_Newport_landfill Howells been making persistent attempts to retrieve the valuable data, including assembling a specialized team and securing funding, despite repeated re...

This episode is about Bitchat, an app vibecoded by Jack Dorsey recently. Bitchat Website: https://bitchat.free Identity Is A Bitchat Challenge (MITM Flaw): https://www.supernetworks.org/pages/blog/agentic-insecurity-vibes-on-bitchat Jack Dorsey's Bitchat announcement tweet: https://x.com/jack/status/1941989439237955773 My episode on vibecoding: https://youtu.be/GncUpWOf1cE Bitchat is supposed to b...

In this episode we discuss Australia's decision to include YouTube in a social media ban for children under 16, a reversal of an earlier exemption. Some sources: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/australia-widens-teen-social-media-ban-youtube-scraps-exemption-2025-07-29/ https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/30/tech/australia-youtube-social-media-ban-intl-hnk https://www.theguardian.com/technolog...

So Google is (edit: was!) apparently indexing various ChatGPT chats, as can be verified by entering "inurl:https://chatgpt.com/share" after your search query. This is probably the most phenomenal thing I've heard this month (year?). [UPDATE] Shortly after this news started gaining attention, OpenAI decided to pull the "share" feature. See my video here: https://youtube.com/shorts/rbbT_cp4_cE?featu...

YouTube is introducing new AI-powered technology aimed at identifying users under 18 years old, regardless of the birthdate provided on their account. https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/extending-our-built-in-protections-to-more-teens-on-youtube/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/youtube-ai-powered-technology-teen-users/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/teens-and-social-media-fact-shee...