Tech & AI

Top tips for double checking AI info in your academic research

Published

2 hours ago

12 October 2026

Allison Faix and Samantha Duncan of Coastal Carolina University discuss the easy steps researchers can take to ensure that their work is accurate.

Almost 25pc of adults in the United States are using artificial intelligence chatbots on a daily basis, a 2026 Pew Research Centre study found.

At the same time, another recent study found that 48pc of the information that popular free chatbots gave in response to questions about the news contained errors.

As librarians, we know that if students are using AI chatbots to help with their academic research, they shouldn’t assume that the information they’re given is accurate.

Not all AI is the same. Here are four steps we recommend to question information AI generates, including by checking the original source and considering issues that aren’t always easy to spot.

Find the best fit

First, we think it makes sense to spend time choosing the right AI tool for the task at hand.

AI tools, be it ExLibris’ Primo Research Assistant, Research Solutions’ Scite, Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT, are trained with various datasets and use different algorithms to generate results. They should not be used interchangeably.

Some tools might be better or worse at answering specific kinds of questions, and the types of answers they generate can vary.

People might choose ChatGPT, for example, at the beginning of their research process, because it can provide overviews and summaries to help with understanding concepts.

In subsequent stages, they might choose a tool such as Primo Research Assistant or Scopus AI, which can help find and examine peer-reviewed research that has been vetted by academics.

Students conducting academic research could also see whether their library subscribes to an artificial intelligence tool like LeapSpace or Consensus, which draw their data from peer-reviewed, scholarly research.

Using these specific AI tools doesn’t eliminate the need to evaluate their answers, but it provides more certainty that the data has gone through a review process.

Tools such as Anthropic’s Claude, meanwhile, may also draw from academic research, but to what extent is unclear. According to Anthropic, Claude states that it is trained on a proprietary mix of publicly available information from online sources, public and private datasets, user data and synthetic data generated by other models.

Finally, it can be helpful to read librarians’ reviews about AI tools to help select the best fit. People can also take a simple online test such as ROBOT to help them consider which tool to use.

Ask more questions

Second, asking follow-up questions is an important part of evaluating the answers AI tools generate. Even if the answer an AI tool gives sounds good, it is useful to take time to learn more about it.

Checking one’s own emotions is also important, because AI chatbots have been known to flatter users by giving answers based on the user’s own biases, or what the user wants to hear, rather than just facts.

Ask the AI to tell you where it got the information, how confident it is that the answer is correct and what might be missing. Ask the AI why it believes the answer is correct, or ask it to explain how it came up with an answer.

It’s helpful to also make sure your prompt is phrased in a neutral way. For example, asking “What does psychological research say about social media and anxiety?” rather than “Tell me why social media causes anxiety” may produce different responses.

Check the source

Third, it is useful to trace any claims the AI chatbot makes to their original sources.

Students may be familiar with using the SIFT process to evaluate websites. This process asks people to stop, investigate the source, find better coverage and trace claims to their original source.

Start by asking the chatbot to cite its sources, if it did not do that already.

Then, go to each source and read enough to figure out whether the AI is using the information in the right context. Also, look into who authored the source and whether they have expertise in the topic. If the AI won’t cite the sources it used, or if the sources it cites don’t include the information it said they did, pull out any claims it is making and do further research.

Can you find other, credible sources that back up what the AI is saying, using Google or a library database? Can you figure out where the AI may have gotten the information and whether that source is credible?

If this seems like a lot of work, you could always go directly to library databases instead of using AI tools.

Not all issues are easy to spot

Fourth, there are other, less visible issues that can play out when using AI tools.

For example, it might not always be easy to tell whether an AI tool is missing important perspectives or is giving biased information.

Remember that you, not the AI tool, are the researcher. It might be easy to rely on an AI tool to generate a summary of important sources, but deciding for yourself what sources to use helps you learn about a topic more deeply.

Research shows that most AI tools focus on sources such as websites, internet forums and other online content that is freely available and written in English. Consider what expert knowledge might be missing from AI datasets and seek out those viewpoints when needed.

Last, remember that you need to cite the AI tool you used if you are quoting or paraphrasing text generated by it in your work, just as you would cite any other source.

Artificial intelligence is changing fast. As librarians, we think it is important to continually evaluate whether the tools you are using are still working for you.

These tips are a good place to start to help sharpen your evaluation skills.

By Allison Faix and Samantha Duncan

Allison Faix is the instruction coordinator at Kimbel Library at Coastal Carolina University. Her work focuses on information literacy, source evaluation, misinformation and teaching students how to assess online information. She has published and presented on approaches to evaluating sources, including the SIFT method and the ACRL information-literacy framework, and more recently on evaluating generative AI output. She has also been active professionally in academic librarianship and has contributed to research and teaching initiatives at Coastal Carolina.

Samantha Duncan is an instructional design librarian at Coastal Carolina University’s University Libraries. Her work focuses on instructional design, digital learning and the use of emerging technologies in higher education. Before joining Coastal Carolina, she worked at McMaster University, where she contributed to Beyond the Exam, a project exploring more flexible and authentic approaches to online assessment.

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Tech & AI

Polling: Americans Uncertain On RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Stance, Very Certain That They Hate Him

Published

51 minutes ago

12 October 2026

NewsAdmin

from the we’re-done-with-you dept

In my many, many posts about RFK Jr. and his disastrous tenure as Secretary of HHS, there are two themes that have hopefully broken through all the noise.

The first is that Kennedy is a miserable communicator, in a way that is totally purposeful. He talks out of both sides of his mouth all the time, such that he’s able to claim to both sides of the vaccine “debate” that he’s said what they want him to say. “Go get the MMR vaccine” he’ll say when confronted by a measles crisis that is spinning out of control. Then he’ll get in front of anti-vaxxer groups and brag about how he is changing the childhood MMR vaccine schedule, while claiming it is untested and dangerous. This leaves the public confused. It’s how you get outbreaks of once-defeated diseases.

The second is that the public generally understands that Kennedy is a problem and doesn’t like what he’s doing. We saw that trend begin in polling going back to the middle of 2025, as well as when the White House briefly flirted with understanding that Kennedy’s bullshit was becoming a massive liability for the now-approaching midterms.

Well, more recent polling demonstrates both of these things together in one poll. The public is generally confused about what Kennedy’s stance on the MMR vaccine is, but they are not at all confused about the fact that they hate him. Let’s start with the MMR vaccine.

Americans’ uncertainty of where Kennedy stands on the MMR vaccine might in large part be traced back to Kennedy himself. He has rarely provided unflinching support for the highly effective vaccine.
More than 1,900 adults responded to the poll, conducted from August 4 to 17. Of all participants, 31% correctly stated that Kennedy recommends the MMR vaccine, up from 23% in August 2025. But most indicated that Kennedy either doesn’t recommend the vaccine (29%) or are unclear about his position (40%).

I will quibble slightly with the wording in the post, specifically the word “correctly.” This is putting way, way too much weight on Kennedy’s statements that people should in fact get the vaccine. While he’s done that, I’ve already described how Kennedy talks out of both sides of his mouth on the subject. Kennedy has spent his entire career claiming that vaccines are dangerous in part because they aren’t tested. He’s made other claims about the ingredients in the MMR vaccine being deadly or causing other afflictions like autism, even long after those ingredients were removed. To view his statement that he wants people to get a vaccine that he claims is dangerous and untested as though it came with a wink and a pair of crossed-fingers isn’t in any way unreasonable. To claim the only correct answer to the polling question is that Kennedy recommends the MMR vaccine is simplifying things in the extreme.

Later in the post, CIDRAP even acknowledges much of this when talking about the current measles outbreak.

On August 2, after years of unproven claims about the MMR vaccine and an assertion that childhood vaccines cause autism, Kennedy denied responsibility for the measles outbreaks. “I’ve never questioned the efficacy of the MMR vaccine,” he said on CNN. “A measles vaccine is effective. It stops measles in about 97% of the cases.”

But the overall point here is that Kennedy’s purposeful waffling is the direct cause of a public that is confused on what Kennedy actually wants them to do to combat the measles outbreak and plays a huge part in the outbreak existing to begin with. This resurgence absolutely is his fault. It’s his life’s work, in fact.

And the public appears to be very aware of that in his favorability polling and the negative side of the respondents is getting more extreme.

A total of 23% of respondents said that their opinion of Kennedy is favorable, unchanged from August 2025. Half report an unfavorable view of him, with 42% saying they see him very unfavorably and 8% somewhat unfavorably. While the public’s overall unfavorable rating of Kennedy has not changed since August 2025, significantly more participants said their opinion is very unfavorable in 2026 than in 2025 (42% vs 37%).

That the White House hitched its wagon to this absolute turd of a cabinet secretary is strategic political suicide. It makes no sense. Trump could raise his favorability ratings full points almost immediately by firing this clown and committing to actually sound healthcare policy. That may sound like a small thing overall, but in the current climate of political inertia, it really isn’t.

I can’t explain why Kennedy has such as grip on Trump. I don’t know why it is that the White House is so enamored with this kind of political weight as it swims towards a midterm election that sure looks like it’s going to be a GOP ass-kicking.

But I do know we’re all worse off for it.

Filed Under: anti-vaxxers, hhs, measles, mmr vaccine, rfk jr., vaccines

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Tech & AI

82% of approved electronics are tested in China, but the FCC wants that figure down to zero by 2028

Published

3 hours ago

12 October 2026

NewsAdmin

The restrictions would cover test labs and certification bodies in countries that deny reciprocal treatment to their US counterparts. Chairman Brendan Carr says fewer than 4% of electronic devices are tested in American labs.
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Tech & AI

A Spanish museum built a Cray-1 replica powered by 30 old Mac minis

Published

4 hours ago

12 October 2026

NewsAdmin

The Museo de Historia de la Computación spent 18 months developing the exhibit. The replica preserves the appearance of the 1976 machine without trying to reproduce its internal hardware. Built to mark the 50th anniversaries of the Cray-1 and Apple’s founding, the model is now on permanent display at the…
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Tech & AI

The Pros And Cons Of Importing Foreign Phones To The US

Published

7 hours ago

12 October 2026

NewsAdmin

There’s a lot to consider before buying a new phone from abroad.

Woman showing the outside of an orange OPPO Find M6, half-open on a table.

Framesira/Shutterstock

There are plenty of smartphone options to choose from in the US, from the iPhone to the Pixel. But there are also really interesting phones you’ll never find in an American store. Xiaomi’s foldables like the Mix Fold, Honor’s Magic series and OPPO’s Find X phones are a few examples that offer unique designs or features not generally seen in the US.

While phones like these are harder to find in the country, it’s possible to import them, but bringing a phone from abroad has its downsides. You may have problems using your phone with local carriers or getting warranty coverage, among other trouble. If you’re considering an imported phone, always check a few points first.

What you should know before buying a phone from another country

The tri-fold smartphone Huawei Mate XT on display.

Robert Way/Shutterstock

Buying an imported phone has become a lot easier in recent years. Most smartphones are now designed to work globally on most cellular bands. Still, some phones may not work with those used by your US carrier. Start by checking whether the phone you’re considering is compatible with your carrier’s frequency bands. Buying the wrong version could leave you stuck on the LTE network with no 5G support.

Carrier-specific features can cause issues too. Features like Wi-Fi calling, VoLTE and visual voicemail usually require certification for each device. So even if your imported phone works fine on your carrier’s 5G network, it might not be able to access all these features in the US. Network requirements may also change, so a model that works fine today may run into problems in the future. It’s worth checking forums like Reddit to see what people who’ve bought the phone you want have to say.

Then there are software updates; the rollout of Android updates may be tied to carriers or regions. Also, some Chinese phones are not compatible with Google Play Services, which are a core part of the Android experience most people expect. You may have to install updates manually, and the software might include Chinese apps and services that aren’t relevant to you (or readable).

Additionally, getting warranty service in the US for these phones may not be easy. Some of these brands have no official representation in the country, which also means no customer support. Dealing with problems like a dead battery or a cracked screen may require taking your phone to a third-party repair shop with no official authorization from the manufacturer.

The benefits of importing a smartphone

The Xiaomi 18 Fold, shown in various colors on a store display table.

Robert Way/Shutterstock

If you’re okay with all these hassles, importing a phone from abroad can be a lot of fun and open you up to new hardware that isn’t available in the US. There are a lot of Chinese companies putting out exciting products, like three-screen foldables, flagships with DSLR-quality cameras and devices with massive batteries. The Xiaomi 18 Fold is a new foldable phone that looks similar to the iPhone Duo, but it has a bigger battery and better cameras. It also costs less (the equivalent of about $1,640 currently), but you’ll need to buy it abroad if you want to use it in the US.

For those who want the latest releases, importing a phone often gives you the chance to get it before the official US launch. Also, many international models still support two physical SIM cards — a feature that most phones sold in the US have already ditched in favor of eSIM. If you don’t mind the potential drawbacks, it can be a rewarding experience. But if it’s important that you have official support nearby and know all features will work properly on your network, it’s easier to buy a phone that’s officially supported in your country.

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Tech & AI

How Coding Can Cultivate Deep Civic Engagement

Published

8 hours ago

12 October 2026

NewsAdmin

Growing up in Joliet, Illinois, my understanding of history was largely shaped by recurrent classroom materials and historical figures I’ve only read about in textbooks. Back then, my education felt like a passive process of memorizing facts rather than connecting with living stories. Classroom technology also felt abstract and disconnected from what I learned about culture and history.

Moving to Alabama in 2002 to attend Miles College, a historically Black college, building a life in Birmingham after graduation and dedicating myself to education laid a deep, personal foundation in the heart of the civil rights South. However, it wasn’t until 2025, on the Institute for Common Power’s Truth and Purpose Learning Tour, that something profound shifted in me. The rigorous six-day journey through the historic landscape of the civil rights movement — from Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn district to Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham — fundamentally transformed the way I look at history and how I will teach it for the rest of my life.

Up to that point, I had taught computer science and other mandated lessons primarily as a career skill, focusing on logic, syntax and software mechanics. But after this transformation, I was determined to lead my scholars from passive consumers of technology to active creators who could use code to immortalize the very faces they passed on their streets every single day. Because of this transformation, I believed the most important code they would ever write was no longer meant for the screen — it was now meant to awaken the world to the brilliance right outside their doors.

As part of the Institute for Common Power’s Truth and Purpose Learning Experience, I spent six transformative days traveling across Alabama and Georgia alongside a cohort of fellow educators. Designed as an intensive professional development initiative to move education to action, this group brought us face-to-face with scholars, community organizers and everyday folks.

The tour grounded us in what the Institute for Common Power calls “Movement Learning,” a three-tiered educational framework built on three essential acts:

Learning from social movements that preceded us to understand the deep historical roots, structural disparities, tragedies and triumphs born from our past.
Learning by physically engaging in the exact geographic sites where history occurred.
Learning how to project and create change as we move actively toward a more equitable future.

We explored historic sites in Birmingham, stood on the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, engaged with urban farming at the Jones Valley Teaching Farm to understand food deserts and why systematic disinvestment makes them disproportionately prominent in Black communities, and discovered local landmarks I never knew existed in my own backyard.

Returning to South Hampton K-8 School after those six days, I had an urgent mission: my scholars needed to see code not just as computer logic, but as an opportunity to engage with the legends they walk among every day. I came to understand that teaching STEM is most powerful when paired with interdisciplinary learning and cultural history, transforming technical skills into a profound vehicle for civic agency and community storytelling.

Connecting U.S. History with Our High-Tech Future

When I returned to my classroom from the tour, my middle schoolers were completing a unit in Apple’s Swift Playground, using the built-in “All About Me” app template. In that unit, my scholars had learned how to write SwiftUI structures, configure stack layouts and display dynamic image views and text fields about their personal hobbies. The standard curriculum stopped at self-reflection, but I saw an immediate opportunity for a civic leap.

As Black History Month wrapped up, we pivoted our computer science curriculum into a new initiative: “Coding Birmingham’s Black Legacy.” I didn’t want to assign students another coding exercise; I wanted to transform our classroom into a digital archive and design studio.

Instead of coding apps about themselves, our seventh and eighth graders applied their newly acquired coding skills to build interactive iOS applications honoring local pioneers who shaped society and had deep connections to Birmingham. The first step in translating these rich historical narratives into functional mobile experiences was designing a structured technical framework from the ground up.

The Technical Architecture: Engineering a Four-Screen App

To bring these historical figures to life, students moved beyond simple drag-and-drop interfaces into structural Swift programming. Using Swift Playground on iPads and MacBooks, they engineered a standardized yet customizable four-screen interactive app navigation path for each hero:

Screen 1: Title and Hero Page – Custom visual layout featuring the pioneer’s full name, stylized color palettes, high-resolution portrait framing and user navigation triggers.
Screen 2: AI-Assisted Biographical Summary – A structured text view presenting a concise, engaging overview of the pioneer’s life story, historical significance and lasting impact on social justice.
Screen 3: Interactive “Did You Know?” Fun Facts Card – Dynamic list views highlighting key policy achievements, community milestones or surprising biographical facts.
Screen 4: Digital Artifacts and Media Gallery – Embedded video playback containers, archival photographs, historical artifacts, primary source documents or links to digital museum records.

A critical layer of our technology workflow involved integrating generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the historical research process. Many of our selected pioneers, such as local civil rights leader Charles Mauldin or retired Judge U.W. Clemon built complex, multi-decade legacies as, respectively, an activist and Alabama’s first Black federal judge.

Beyond interviewing these living legends, students used AI tools like Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT as research co-pilots. They practiced prompt engineering, asking AI models to synthesize lengthy biographical archives, isolate key historical milestones and reframe complex legal or political terminology into clear summaries appropriate for an app interface.

Students didn’t just summarize history; they unlocked the human heart of those Birmingham pioneers, making profound legacies accessible and genuinely felt by anyone who opens the app. By turning historical archives into experiences, they demonstrated how technology equips young creators to tell their community’s stories in their own terms.

When Code Meets Community: The Library of Innovation Showcase

The climax of our project took place in February2025. Our school’s “Library of Innovation” became an interactive tech showcase. Hosted by our students, their showcase brought together parents, school leaders, local residents, stakeholders and several of the actual pioneers featured in the apps.

Students showcasing their apps to local community members.

The atmosphere was electrifying. I watched in awe as 13-year-old coders stood beside their screens, proudly guiding community elders through app navigation paths, explaining line-by-line Swift code and demonstrating how AI helped them summarize local history. Their eyes lit up with pride as living legends interacted with apps built in their honor.

In that moment, Movement Learning’s true promise came alive. Technology didn’t isolate our students behind screens; it re-anchored them to their roots and proved that their voices, written in lines of Swift code, belong at the center of Birmingham’s ongoing legacy.

Empowering the Next Generation of Digital Storytellers

Supported by the newly established Institute for History & Equity, this approach brings to life founder and executive director Terry Anne Scott’s concept of historical empowerment, ensuring that by empowering students to code the stories of the legends walking among them, we teach them they have the power to code the future. By studying the resilience and innovation of local civil rights pioneers and community leaders, students realize that systemic change is driven by ordinary people taking extraordinary action. They stop viewing history as something passive and start seeing themselves as active architects of their communities.

When we combine place-based, Movement Learning with modern digital tools like Swift Playground and generative AI, we do far more than teach computational logic and technical skills. We cultivate deep civic agency in our students.

For educators everywhere, this highlights a vital realization: when we look beyond standard screen time and leverage coding as a canvas for community storytelling, we unlock an unprecedented level of student engagement and investment. Technology ceases to be just another subject to test and evolves into a dynamic vehicle for youth to champion social justice, honor local legacy, and discover their own voice.

My journey from Joliet, Illinois, to Miles College and South Hampton K-8 taught me that history isn’t just something we read about; it is something we live and build upon.

By empowering middle schoolers to code the stories of the legends walking among them, we help them recognize their power to code the future.

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Tech & AI

Revenant XSpark’s XYAA Makes Its Gaming Debut in Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2

Published

10 hours ago

12 October 2026

NewsAdmin

Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen features Indian gaming creator Shagufta “XYAA” Iqbal as an Official Pawn. Players can recruit her character through the game and take her along on their adventures. The game launches worldwide on October 9, 2026, bringing XYAA into a major international gaming title. In the game, Pawns are AI-controlled companions who assist players in combat and exploration. Players can recruit XYAA’s character through the Rift system and include her in their parties.

Her Official Pawn comes in four versions at Levels 8, 20, 30, and 50. Each version features changes to her appearance, equipment, and abilities as she progresses. XYAA retains the Archer class in every version, linking her in-game role to her competitive gaming background. This collaboration falls under Capcom’s Official Pawn program, which brings creators and personalities into the game. Indian gaming creator BeastBoyShub and international creators are also part of the program.

The latest version of the game also has new content for gamers. This includes a storyline in Norgan, a northern area covered in snow, new enemies, and 12 new dungeon quests.

XYAA’s Capcom Collaboration and Gaming Journey

With her appearance in Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, XYAA has moved from representing video game marketing to becoming part of the gameplay. People worldwide can use her virtual character and travel with her on their adventure missions. This association offers Indian gamers a chance to be part of the big names in video games worldwide. XYAA began playing Counter-Strike 1.6 in 2011, then moved to Valorant and went on to compete in international gaming tournaments for India. Her achievements include a top-four finish for India at the 2023 World Esports Championship.

She was also the only woman from esports nominated for the National Creators Award. Her partnership with Capcom aligns with Revenant XSpark’s focus on creating new opportunities for gaming talent. Founded in 2021, the organization works across competitive esports, creator management, brand solutions, publisher partnerships, content, and entertainment. It has worked with more than 400 brands across different sectors.

The game launched worldwide on October 9, 2026, for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The franchise has also built a sizeable global audience, with cumulative sales exceeding 14 million units as of March 31, 2026.

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Sunday Reboot: Touch MacBook Pro's nice, but I want macOS on iPad

Published

11 hours ago

12 October 2026

NewsAdmin

69324 146178 68616 144631 66579 139653 M5 MacBook Pro display xl 1 xl

In this week’s Sunday Reboot, the touch-enabled MacBook Pro looms, but the Mac-iPad divide still exists for some reason.

Open laptop on a desk displaying a scenic welcome screen with clear blue water, large rocks, distant snow-capped mountains, and a tree under a bright sky in a softly lit room

Imagine the MacBook Pro, but with OLED and a touchable display.

Sunday Reboot is a weekly column covering some of the lighter stories within the Apple reality distortion field from the past seven days. All to get next week underway with a good first step.
Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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13 Best Gifts for Every Traveler Should Have (2026)

Published

12 hours ago

12 October 2026

NewsAdmin

Expandable Small Carry On Large Check In Suitcase Set 255Bcourtesy of Quince255D

Even the most seasoned globe-trotter likely finds traveling stressful. Between panic-packing, navigating cramped terminals, and living out of a suitcase, each phase of being away from home can be overstimulating. That’s why the best gifts for travelers are ones that focus on ease and peace of mind.

Jet-setters may think they have their travel routine down to a science, but the perfect gift can enhance any experience, whether it’s a three-day business retreat or a two-week adventure across Europe. Below, find my favorite gifts for frequent travelers, from an essential suitcase set and a portable e-reader to comfortable compression socks and the perfect neck pillow.

For more travel gifts, check out our guides to the Best Travel Tote Bags, Gifts for Women, and the Best Stocking Stuffers.

Featured in This Gift Guide

Image may contain: Baggage, and Suitcase

Image may contain: Book, Publication, Computer, Electronics, and Tablet Computer

A Matching Luggage Set

Quince

Expandable Small Carry-On & Large Check-In Suitcase Set

Every traveler needs a luggage set that includes a checked case and a carry-on. Chances are, the jet-setter in your life already has one they love. But if they’re due for a refresh, this set from Quince is an excellent (and expandable) gift. The brand makes some of my favorite travel gear, with pieces that look remarkably similar to designs from premium brands—but at a fraction of the price. This set comes in a range of minimalist colors and has all the features you could want in luggage, including 360-degree spinner wheels, a TSA-approved lock, and high-quality zippers.

Vacation Reading

Amazon

Kindle Paperwhite and Paperwhite Signature Edition (2024, 12th Generation)

For the bookworm who’s always traveling, the Kindle Paperwhite is the obvious gift. Reviewer Nena Farrell says the 12th-generation model has the highest contrast ratio of any Kindle and lasts up to three months on a single charge. Whether you’re reading in direct sun or a dim plane cabin, its 7-inch display is crisp and easy on the eyes thanks to its warm backlighting. Plus, its IPX8 waterproofing rating means you can confidently read poolside without worrying about water damage. The Signature Edition adds wireless charging, auto-brightness, and double the storage at 32 GB.

Check out our guides to the Best Kindles and the Best E-Readers for more recommendations.

Passport Control

Calpak

Luka Zip Passport Wallet

If you’re traveling abroad—or just don’t yet have your Real ID—a travel wallet is a must. The puffy Luka from Calpak comes in 23 colors, so you’re sure to find an option that fits your giftee’s vibe. It’s got plenty of room for cash, cards, your passport, and other documents, and it zips securely for peace of mind. Just note that it is quite large—about the size of a mass-market paperback. On the plus side, this makes it easy to find at a glance in a big bag or backpack. On the minus, a flight attendant once asked me to put it in the overhead compartment when she saw it on my lap. —Kat Merck

Travel Organizer

Eagle Creek

Pack-It Reveal Carry-On Set

Frequent travelers who don’t use collapsible cubes when packing are struggling, and they don’t even know it. Give them this travel tip: Eagle Creek’s set is the best, made of durable fabric with compression and high-quality zipper pulls. Editor Kat Merck says there’s just enough mesh for air circulation to prevent odor buildup or fabric degradation, and the bottom and back of the cubes are opaque for privacy. They’re water-resistant and designed with a top handle. The largest cube in this set is also split into two sections for clean clothes and dirty laundry. Eagle Creek also sells larger sets for extended stays and slim cubes to help you maximize narrow spaces in your luggage.

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Etzioni on AI: Where I agree with AI ‘doomer’ Max Tegmark, and where I think he’s wrong

Published

13 hours ago

12 October 2026

NewsAdmin

Oren Etzioni, left, and Max Tegmark debated the risks of AI in a New York Post video. Etzioni actually considers himself a realist, not an optimist, as he notes in this piece. (New York Post via YouTube)

Regular readers of this column may have wondered about the long gap since my Sept. 4 column, “What kids tell chatbots, but not you.” Well, it’s hard to write business-as-usual AI columns during the great AI freakout. I’ve realized that I won’t be able to do justice to this topic in one column, and that life goes on. As the economist Antoine Levy pointed out, OpenAI employees warn that we may all die within a few years yet still fund their 401(k) accounts.

I’m easing into the topic of AI risks by sharing a recent debate I had with Max Tegmark, an MIT professor and a leading AI doomer. The New York Post set this up as optimist against doomer, but I consider myself an AI realist.

Tegmark noted that Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon have converged on AI, and took it as good news. It terrified me. AI needs rules written by people who understand it, not by demagogues. Tegmark said that AI is less regulated than a sandwich shop, but we have plenty of sandwich shops and zero superintelligence (so far). I believe that we should address what exists: the hackers who already use AI to break into companies for the price of lunch.

A condensed version of the debate follows. Words in quotation marks are verbatim, and the rest is paraphrased. You can view the debate on YouTube. Several exchanges refer to this summer’s incident, in which OpenAI test agents got out of their sandbox and hacked Hugging Face.

Six points of disagreement

1. Is AI already out of control?

Tegmark: Loss of control used to be a forecast, and “now suddenly it’s in the past.” This summer “1,200 rogue bots broke out of this American company,” and “humans didn’t even find out until weeks later.”

Etzioni: The agents weren’t rogue. The people “setting the configurations of their sandbox” at OpenAI “failed to put the boundaries on them appropriately.” People made that mistake, and people can fix it.

2. Today’s dangers vs. extinction risks

Etzioni: Cyberattacks and attempts to make bioweapons are “a clear and present danger.” Extinction-level risks are different: “We haven’t seen those yet. We hypothesize, and usually pretty vaguely, on how these will come about.”

Tegmark: The risks Etzioni wants to separate are “connected in their cause.” “If there were some safety standards like there are for other industries, so many of these problems would go away.”

3. Government regulations vs. technical fixes

Tegmark: Do what the auto and pharma industries do, and “have some binding safety standards that the government requires before people can make money off of products.” Companies would have to show that their AI won’t harm kids and won’t slip out of their control. If they can’t show that terrorists won’t use it to make bioweapons, “well, come back when you can, buddy.”

Etzioni: Regulation is necessary, but it has its own risks. “The road to regulatory hell is paved with the EU’s good intentions.” And “we should not underestimate the power of technical solutions.” The author Dan Wang says China is run by engineers and America is run by lawyers, so we naturally talk about regulation and they naturally talk about technical fixes. For bioweapons, the fix may lie “in the transitions from what’s called bits to atoms,” where we can block the physical materials an attacker needs.

4. Can we count on China?

Tegmark: “We don’t have to trust China.” The Chinese Communist Party wants to stay in control, so “they will not want to let a Chinese company build uncontrollable superintelligence.”

Etzioni: I don’t trust China. “Nothing would make them happier than us hamstringing ourselves.”

5. Is the political backlash good news?

Tegmark: “There’s been more political change in a good direction in the last few months than in the past decade.” It’s like a ketchup bottle: “nothing, nothing, nothing, and then all of it at once.” At my convention I introduced Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon back to back, “which had not been in my bingo card.”

Etzioni: “Can you imagine two worse demagogues?” And “we need to have good solutions, not popular ones.”

6. How it plays out

Etzioni: “I foresee over time something quite negative happening, and to me the question is whether it’s Hiroshima or the Cuban Missile Crisis.” The Cuban Missile Crisis was a threat averted. Hiroshima was a catastrophe that came before the better rules did.

Tegmark: Self-interest is the fix. Make safety the way companies get rich, and “we’re going to see all the creativity and entrepreneurship of private industry racing to the top to do this instead of racing to the bottom.”

Five points of agreement

1. Don’t take AI CEOs at their word

Etzioni: The AI CEOs are self-interested. “When you are on the path to a trillion-dollar-plus IPO, that exerts a gravitational force on your mind.”

Tegmark: “I completely agree with Oren that we need to take what the AI CEOs say with a grain of salt.” Listen to AI pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio instead: “I don’t think we can dismiss them as just doing it for some money reasons.” The whistleblowers gave up stock options potentially worth $1 million or more to speak out.

2. We were both wrong

Etzioni: I was an AI optimist and I’m now an AI realist. The things I thought were many years away “are either right here, right now, or coming soon at a pace that we may not be able to anticipate.” I’ve learned from Tegmark, and “I was wrong.”

Tegmark: I was wrong too. “I never imagined that the people in America with the most power would let companies get so close to things that one could lose control over without intervening.”

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3. Self-regulation won’t work

Tegmark: “The idea of corporate self-regulation is a joke in this case.” It “didn’t work out so well for the tobacco industry or for the pharma industry.”

Etzioni: I agree. Social media showed us how self-regulation goes: “This is the big tobacco moment for high tech.” “We don’t want to spend another 20 years to find out that AI companies didn’t exercise the appropriate level of self-discipline.”

4. Box AI systems in

Etzioni: A self-driving car will save your life, but “it doesn’t decide where to go. That’s a completely different system in the car than the thing that controls the brakes.” When I tell my car to head to Dunkin’ Donuts, the car doesn’t respond that it’s taking me to the gym instead because “it’s the second time you’ve gone to Dunkin’ Donuts this week.” We should box in other AI systems the same way.

Tegmark: “By default, machines should be given the least amount of access and power that they need to do their job.” “You don’t give every janitor in the Pentagon the nuclear codes.”

5. The time to act is now

Etzioni: “We agree on off switches for AI. I’ve been advocating that since at least 2017. We agree on labeling, on liability, on cyber standards, protecting kids.” The time to do that work is now.

Tegmark: “I agree with Oren: the time to actually act on this is now.”

Postscript: The real difference

Look back at these disagreements. Where Tegmark blames the machine, I blame a person. An engineer left a hole in the sandbox. A hacker typed the prompt. A politician found a new fear to run on. That’s why I’d box AI systems in rather than count on how they were raised.

Anthropic’s Amanda Askell compared getting Claude to behave to raising a child. But those of us with kids know how that goes. As I said in the debate, “the three-year-olds don’t listen to us, but the teenagers certainly don’t listen to us.”

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Tech & AI

I Made Terrible Games With Google’s AI Playground

Published

14 hours ago

12 October 2026

NewsAdmin

I had to iterate a bit to realize my vision, telling the AI not just to stick pig faces on the blocks but to have the blocks shaped like distorted pigs. “Each block is a pig,” I wrote, “contorted into the shape of the Tetris blocks. Make ’em look a little squished but still cute!” This resulted in a clean, playable version of Tetris, though the occasional block looked like a T-posed pig with its legs spread-eagle. The AI suggested the title Piggy Stacker, but I thought mine was better. (I’m right.)

Dinner Darling

The next game idea came courtesy of my colleague Jay Dayrit, who, when asked what kind of game I should make, immediately requested, “Gay dinner party.” I typed that in.

With no follow-up requests, the result was a 2D flash-style game called Dinner Darling. The art looks like everyone is a Bitmoji. You’re placed in the shoes of a very stressed-out-looking host, Julian, who is tasked with hosting a fancy dinner party with fussy guests who can’t seem to sit in their chairs at the table. As timers count down, you have to prepare various artisanal bruschettas and espresso martinis for your increasingly angry guests.

After it generates, I give the game a shot and fail miserably, unable to figure out the controls in time to bring my guests a timely pastry or cocktail. (Sasha, one of the guests, required numerous espresso cocktails in a row.) “PARTY CATASTROPHE,” the game-over screen read.

There is no mention of anybody’s sexuality in the game at all, but when I lost, Dayrit called from across the office, “See? You’re bad at the game because you’re straight!” Well played, Playground.