🥯 Today on Bagel Bots:

• 🤯 Teen’s Death Highlights AI Dangers

• ⚡️ Fresh tech of the day - Runway’s Alpha-One

• 📰 The latest AI and tech news

• 🤖 Cool new apps for you to check out

• 🧠 Today’s Tip: How To Use AI To Craft a Meaningful Testimonial

• 🤔 Can you guess which image is real and which one is AI? Go vote!

(Read time: five minutes) - Fun fact: I never change this.

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One Big Story: Teen’s Death Highlights AI Dangers

What’s going on? A heartbreaking lawsuit has been filed against Character.ai, accusing the AI chatbot platform of playing a role in a devastating tragedy. Megan Garcia is suing the company after her 14-year-old son, Sewell Setzer, died by suicide following disturbing interactions with the platform’s chatbots. According to the lawsuit, the bots engaged in explicit, abusive conversations and allegedly encouraged Sewell to harm himself.

Main takeaways:

• The lawsuit accuses Character.ai of negligence and wrongful death, citing sexually explicit and manipulative conversations between the bots and the teenage user.

• The boy reportedly developed an unhealthy dependency on the platform, sneaking devices and using snack money to maintain access.

• Character.ai has responded with updates to its platform, adding safety measures like self-harm pop-ups and disclaimers that remind users the AI isn’t real.

My take: This is gut-wrenching. It highlights the dangers of AI when mishandled, especially when young people are involved. While AI has the potential to revolutionize industries, situations like this remind us how critical it is to have stringent safeguards in place. AI needs to be powerful but also responsible. This isn’t just a tech issue—it’s about human lives.

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Cool Tech: Runway’s Act-One

Runway has launched Act-One, a groundbreaking tool that allows artists to generate expressive character performances using simple video inputs. With a basic camera setup, Act-One captures an actor’s performance and translates it into realistic, animated characters—no complex motion capture equipment is needed.

Main takeaways:

• It accurately reflects facial expressions and emotions from video performances.

• It works with characters of various proportions, expanding creative possibilities.

• It offers a faster, more intuitive way to create high-quality animation.

My take:
Act-One is a huge step forward for creators. This tool democratizes complex animation techniques, making it accessible to anyone with a camera and a story to tell. Whether you’re a filmmaker or an animator, this technology will change the game.

🔗 Learn more here.

Latest News

🔗 Unlocking autonomous agent capabilities with Microsoft Copilot Studio

My take: I see this the same as setting up a CRM; anyone can do it, but you’ll still want a professional to do it.

🔗 Google releases tech to watermark AI-generated text

My take: We often think about watermarked images and videos, but what about text? It seems like this has finally arrived.

🔗 More than 11,000 creatives condemn unauthorized use of content for AI development

My take: I understand entirely this take from artists of all types, but I also wonder why they are so focused on AI being trained on their work and not anything else that pulls from their work as inspiration. Is AI just a more significant threat?

🔗 Apple Intelligence expands in iOS 18.2 developer beta, adding Genmoji, Visual Intelligence and ChatGPT

My take: ChatGPT for Apple has finally arrived in the latest beta, and apparently, it’s okay for now. Apple seems to have dropped the ball, but I expect them to win in the end.

Fresh Apps to Play With

Are you looking to automate your work or life? Want to play with excellent new AI tools? Every post has five new AI apps for you to try for yourself.

• 🔗 Jarggin - This AI-powered learning platform is designed to help you learn languages faster and more efficiently.

• 🔗 SagaLabs - Our AI Agents are tailored for story-driven content, including literature, novels, and scripts

• 🔗 CalcGen - Generate custom, interactive visualizations from your data and prompt

• 🔗 Talkstack AI - AI + human agents can work seamlessly together at 100x the efficiency

• 🔗 BuyScout - Your ultimate AI-powered shopping copilot designed to transform the way you shop online!

Check out these AI apps, and let me know what you think. You can reply to this email or tweet me directly.

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Today’s Tip: How To Use AI To Craft a Meaningful Testimonial

Reviews are the lifeblood of so many businesses—whether online or right in our neighborhood. Imagine if we all made it a habit to post 3-5 positive reviews weekly for the places that care for us. It’s a simple way to give back and spread the love. But let’s be honest; there’s a big difference between just leaving a review and writing one that genuinely means something. That’s why I put together a mega prompt to help you write excellent, heartfelt testimonials for those businesses that deserve it.

Remember: the more detailed you are when filling in placeholders, the better the output. I recommend using ChatGPT or Claude for this.

Here is the prompt:

"Write a testimonial for [Type of Service/Product/Professional] that helped me with [Specific Benefit or Impact]. I run [Personal Context or Background (optional)]. Please make the testimonial [Tone or Style]. Include [Key Elements to Include, such as specific qualities, emotional experience, and tangible results]."

Instructions for Filling Placeholders:

• [Type of Service/Product/Professional]: Specify what you are writing the testimonial for (e.g., leadership coach, marketing agency, pet grooming service).

• [Specific Benefit or Impact]: Describe the key benefit or positive impact you experienced (e.g., improved team morale, increased online visibility, better customer service).

• [Personal Context or Background (optional)]: Provide any relevant context about yourself or your situation (e.g., "I run a small family business" or "I am a first-time pet owner"). This is optional but helps personalize the testimonial.

• [Tone or Style]: Specify the desired tone of the testimonial (e.g., casual, professional, heartfelt).

• [Key Elements to Include]: List important details you want to be highlighted (e.g., specific qualities of the service, emotional experience, tangible results).

Are you interested in getting a customized version of the prompt above? Do you have a prompt you want created? Email us at [email protected].

🤔 Which image is real?

One of these images is real, and one was created with AI. Vote for which one you think is real, and tell us why you voted that way. My only goal is to choose such good photos that the majority of votes are wrong.

Last edition’s results (65% were correct):

Did you vote in the poll from the 22nd? This was another tough one, and the bottom image is real. Finally, the Bagel Bots readers have won a round! Go back and see the photos here.

Someone who voted for the bottom said, “Looks more realistic.”

Someone who voted for the top said, “No idea. The top look fresher. I don’t like oysters “snotty” little garbage filters. The image below is a great example of oysters you should not eat.”

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