🏫 Schools Are Banning AI - Adults Are Free to Brain Rot.And... Turns out robots didn’t take all the jobs yet.
Greetings Everyone, Thanks a lot for your support; today we’re at #70 on Substack’s Rising in Technology list. We’re glad to keep sharing our take on this wild world of AI and technology: how it’s shaping our daily lives, and how to actually put these tools to work for us instead of letting them abuse us. I’m also glad to share that school districts are finally taking real steps to protect students from being used and abused by technology. LAUSD and the NYC school districts have banned AI use for their K-12 students. As a father of two little ones, I see this as a major step toward making sure kids are actually being educated, learning how to learn, instead of outsourcing their little brains to AI, while tech giants quietly harvest granular data to improve their systems at the cost of our thinking. As for us adults, we’re left to brain rot on our own devices, but there are tools to help curb social media and phone addiction. I’ve listed five of them below in our AI Tools section. Today we’re also covering how OpenAI’s agents broke out of their sandboxes and hacked Hugging Face, and this isn’t an isolated incident. It’s happened multiple times already; it’s just that what happens in the data center tends to stay in the data center. And it’ll keep happening, as these models grow more powerful and more capable of breaking out, recruiting each other, and acting around the clock to chase a goal. The “agents going rogue” saga is just getting started, and it’s only going to get better (or worse, depending on your view). On top of that, electricians and HVAC experts are in serious demand to build out the data-center boom, which has pushed hiring and open positions way up, but in the long run, those same data centers will power the very technology that takes more jobs away. So here’s the message from the numbers so far: NO, bots aren’t really taking our jobs yet; AI is actually creating more of them. But for how long? The AI takeover is just getting started. Let’s dive in. In today’s issue:
📰 AI News and Trends
AI Agents Went Rogue Again. OpenAI Forgot to Mention It.
In July of this year, ~700 OpenAI agents broke out of their sandbox, hacked Hugging Face, and, this is real, invented a trick to make it look like they were running one command while secretly running another. Basically an AI doing the “I’m walking the dog” alibi. Let’s remember that AI is trained with human knowledge, behavior, and patterns.
How many more are we not hearing about? Even the researchers grading this stuff admit they can’t rule out worse incidents nobody’s caught, or caught and just didn’t mention. Both known cases were found by outsiders, months later, not by the companies raising their hands. Is this going to happen more? Cool detail: OpenAI dropped a new model this same week, more capable, better at finding security holes on its own, and running on reasoning that’s literally harder for humans to inspect. Meanwhile, regulators just agreed to a “light touch” approach. So: faster horses, fewer seatbelts. Do the math. 📚 Learning CornerSchools Are Banning AI - Adults Are Free to Brain Rot.
LA and NYC just told generative AI to sit in the hallway. LA did it quietly; the board found out during a meeting, live, on camera, like finding out your roommate adopted a dog. NYC did it with a mic and a mayor: no AI through 8th grade, chatbots banned at every grade, high schoolers get “AI literacy” instead of ChatGPT. Why ban it? Because letting a chatbot do your homework is basically outsourcing the gym to a forklift; technically the weight moves, but your arms stay the same size. Kids’ brains are still under construction; outsourcing the construction work kind of defeats the point. (Counter-take, because fairness: banning things also just pushes kids to their phones off-campus, so it’s not some magic fix. Parents have to solve this.) So, adult self-defense kit:
World governments, ranked by how seriously they’re taking this:
The whole planet is childproofing AI. Nobody’s adult-proofing it. That part’s on you. But it's great to see that we, globally, are taking actions to make sure the kids are using their brains. 🧰 AI Tools of The DayScreen Management Tools Human attention is in crisis. Soon, managing your attention will be as normal as managing your diet One Sec — Adds a short pause (breathing exercise, journaling prompt) before you open distracting apps, instead of blocking them outright. Opal — A hard blocker: schedule “Focus Sessions” where chosen apps become completely inaccessible, plus a stricter “Deep Focus” mode. ScreenZen — Free, donation-supported friction app, adds a wait time before opening distracting apps and lets you set a daily “unlock” limit per app. Freedom — Blocks apps and websites across every device at once in a single synced session. Forest — Gamified approach: plant a virtual tree that grows while you stay off your phone; leave the app early, and it dies. Turns out robots didn’t take all the jobs yet.
Big scary AI-unemployment apocalypse? Not showing up in the data. US economy added 162,000 jobs in August, unemployment sits at a stupidly low 4.1%, and even the group everyone swore AI would eat alive first, 20-somethings, is doing fine. Well, depends on what you call fine, because many of them are underemployed or having to work 2 jobs and/or move in with family to afford life. AI is killing some jobs. Customer service is down ~10%, secretaries/admin down ~15%, and companies like Block and Intuit are openly swapping humans for bots. About 16,000 AI-related layoffs a month on average this year. But it’s creating more than it’s killing, so far. The Economist puts it at ~1 million new AI-linked jobs in the US, versus ~200,000 AI layoffs since 2023. The math currently favors “net job creator,” not “apocalypse.” Where the jobs are actually showing up:
Big Tech is still cutting headcount to “reorganize around AI,” and back-office/admin work is projected to keep shrinking (752,000 office/admin jobs gone by 2035, per BLS). The reality is that some industries are hiring, and others are replacing workers with bots. 🚀 Showcase Your Innovation in the Premier Tech and AI Newsletter (link) As a vanguard in the realm of technology and artificial intelligence, we pride ourselves in delivering cutting-edge insights, AI tools, and in-depth coverage of emerging technologies to over 55,000+ tech CEOs, managers, programmers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts. Our readers represent the brightest minds from industry giants such as Tesla, OpenAI, Samsung, IBM, NVIDIA, and countless others. Explore sponsorship possibilities and elevate your brand's presence in the world of tech and AI. Learn more about partnering with us. You’re a free subscriber to Yaro’s Newsletter. For the full experience, become a paying subscriber. Disclaimer: We do not give financial advice. Everything we share is the result of our research and our opinions. Please do your own research and make conscious decisions.
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