Google’s NotebookLM, powered by Gemini 1.5, represents a transformative leap in online collaboration and automated writing. It enables users to target specific sources, extract and process information with precision, and even generate podcasts, making it a powerful personal AI agent.

Having drawn the short straw, I’ll be first up Monday when Elizabeth Benedict opens her fiction-writing workshop in the New York State Summer Writers Institute. Here’s my intro to the serialized novel I’m writing in 20 weekly chapters through Election Day with Elias Kruger and Ron Roth, my AI and Faith colleagues. More to follow.

"Thinking through the design of such a system is becoming a necessary task," writes Tobias Rose-Stockwell. "Any platform that controls and influences humans at such an enormous scale must provide us with clear ways of understanding it." 

Mustafa Suleyman says we’re approaching a critical threshold where the integration of AI in our daily lives, alongside advancements in quantum computing, synthetic biology, and more, will change everything.

Brain sensors are giving us new ways to interact with our devices. "We are rapidly heading toward a world of brain transparency, in which scientists, doctors, governments, and companies may peer into our brains and minds at will,” says Duke law professor Nita Farahany.

“AI has opened up a vast design space, offering new materials and modes of operation, as well as novel ways to explore the space at a rate much faster than biological evolution,” writes Susan Schneider. “Mind design is a form of intelligent design, but by humans, not God.”

Elon Musk has made his move into humans, calling Neuralink’s new implant “Telepathy.”

The Smartacus Sharing Circle is taking shape. We’ll mark its launch on Ayudha Puja, a Hindu festival in which we celebrate our tools and machines and mark new beginnings.