>interchange w20y26
Curiosities for 11 -> 17 May 2026
It ‘Makes Sense to Someone, Somewhere’
Church of Scientology is mad teens keep running through their centers and filming it for TikTok.
The group of rowdy runners included a person dressed up as Jesus and a person in a hot dog costume.
Top 5
01. Researchers make “neuromorphic” artificial skin for robots - Ars Technica
…the researchers set up a robotic arm covered with their artificial skin, and got it to move the arm whenever it experiences pressure that can cause damage.
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02. AI chatbots could be making you stupider - BBC Future
Those who used their own minds had a brain that was “”on fire”“, showing widespread activity across many parts of the brain, she says. The search engine-only group still showed strong activity in the visual parts of the brain, but the ChatGPT group showed notably less brain activity – it was reduced by up to 55%
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Chatbots encouraged ‘teens’ to plan shootings in study | The Verge
Friendly AI chatbots more prone to inaccuracies, study suggests - BBC News
03. AI chatbots know more about you than you realise | The Straits Times
Unlike traditional platforms, an AI chatbot doesn’t need piles of individual data points to understand you. It picks up meaning from the language itself. Not just what you say, but also how you say it. Through your word choices, sentence structure, cultural references and details mentioned in passing, you’re unknowingly revealing a lot about yourself.
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04. Longevity tourism is on the rise. It could be coming for you next.
The treatments on offer at Xtend and elsewhere have an air of science and spirituality to them—they are discussed at longevity conferences, biohacking meetups, and even immortalist churches.
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An AI model beat doctors at diagnosing patients, in a new study : NPR
Inside the stealthy startup that pitched brainless human clones | MIT Technology Review
05. Ingestible Electronics Are Turning Pills Into Devices - IEEE Spectrum
The next step requires capsules that can sense biomarkers, make decisions, and trigger specific actions—moving from clever hardware to truly autonomous “smart pills.”
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Tangents
Ask.com Is Dead, and I’m Begging Its Owners Not to Bring AskJeeves Back as a Chatbot
To teach in the time of ChatGPT is to know pain - Ars Technica
Quote
I don’t know how to have casual conversation. You think you’re talking about one thing, and either you are and it’s incredibly boring, or you’re not because it’s subtext and you need a decoder ring.
Sara B. Cooper, House M.D., Love Hurts, 2004
Best for the week ahead!
-Tim