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I am back after a long break. I took that break because I was burnt out, overwhelmed and anxious. I’m better now and writing today’s newsletter was fun once more. Maybe that means next week will be inspiring.

Today’s newsletter will challenge your ethics and your morality.

You have been warned.

What I have for you this week:

• AI Snippets

• Caroline’s weekly thoughts

• Chef Maggie Recommends

• Useful Stuff

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I did not want to read Luiza Jarovsky’s post on LinkedIn because I knew it would evoke an emotional response from me, and it did. It made me cry. The story is about another teen suicide where the police found the unlocked phone next to her body logged in to Character.ai. Luiza correctly makes the point that governments are turning a blind eye to this threat. This is the second suicide that I have heard by a teenager where Character.ai was used by the victim.

What is the saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me? If you are a parent of a young child, please restrict AI chatbots or friends from your kids devices until they are at least 18. Personally, I think Character.ai and any other company like them should be adult only, like a porn site. The US should make this a policy, law or something! In case you are wondering, Character.ai’s privacy policy says “The Services are not designed for minors under 13, and our Terms of Service prohibit use by anyone under 13 or under 16 if you are a resident of the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom.”

The victim here was 13.

I’m gonna tell you a pet peeve of mine. Calling someone a “B” player. So, when I received an email with this headline “Why AI Agents Will Be The Death of the B Player” - I cringed.

I have heard that the unemployment rate for the age group of 18-26 is in the teens (I think I heard it on Morning Brew, but now I cannot find it). That is crazy and I think AI is to blame. Are people who just enter the work force B players simply because of their inexperience? Are AI agents doing this entry level work? Is this a bad thing?

Gosh that is such a tough question. We don’t want people out of work because then they can’t feed or house themselves. And foregoing people in favor of cheaper AI could be better for the economy as a whole. Or maybe it is just better for the company experiencing greater profit margins. Is that a bad thing?

Tough questions and I am still cringing.

Does using GenAI make you a cheater?

Re-read that question and think about it for a minute. Because lately, I’ve noticed people fall sharply on one side or the other. Either it’s all good: innovative, productive, the future. Or it’s all bad: lazy, unethical, cheating. There’s not much space in between.

I see it in social media comments and in conversations with friends. People want clear rules about what’s “okay” to use AI for. They draw lines: I’d never let it write for me. I’d never use it to make art. That would be cheating.

But is it really that simple?

I use GenAI to generate the pictures in this newsletter. Does that make me a cheater? I’ve never claimed to be an artist or photographer. Should I be buying stock images instead of using a chatbot?

And what about writing? I have an idea for a novel I’ll probably never write. But if I did, and I used AI to help me bring it to life, would that make it less mine? Less authentic?

People like to say AI use is either ethical or unethical, but it is not that clear and I hope you have not read this newsletter as such. The truth is, we’re still figuring out what “ethical use” even means. Maybe it’s not about drawing lines between what’s right or wrong, but about asking why we think something crosses that line in the first place.