I’ve shared that explicit deepfakes are proliferating in schools. Very sadly and frustratingly, this is also affecting teachers.

Wired, this week, shared accounts from four teachers who were victims of sexually explicit deepfakes created and shared by their students.

It’s heartbreaking, because in each of these cases, the mental/emotional toll was significant and lasting. These teachers no longer feel safe, which will likely have an impact on their ability to teach as well and as openly as they would want.

Schools are doing their best to handle these cases and ensure a safe environment for their teachers and students, but this is new territory and the protocols aren’t fully buttoned up - in one of the article’s examples, the saga lasted for months.

And so, let’s also take accountability and make sure our kids understand that these deepfakes of teachers or peers are not ok - and are illegal. If encountered, they should inform a trusted adult immediately and not engage or share.

Finally, some good news about social media safety: as the result of a legal settlement this week, Meta is forced to make significant changes to how its products work for people under 18 including things like:

I am hoping that the AI labs are paying attention and will build in safeguards for young people ASAP (ChatGPT for Teens is a step in the right direction) - or be urgently mandated to do so - because using AI in the wrong ways as kids and teens while brains are still developing could have lasting consequences.

Let’s please not wait until a generation has to pay the price.

Bill Gates joined the letter-writing party this week, sounding the alarm on jobs going away and bad actors doing very bad things, and offering a handful of vague fixes: a new "system" for managing the transition, saving some jobs for humans, taxing robot labor. Plus a commitment to use his "voice and time to get AI and equity higher on the public agenda."

Argh. The man has the Gates Foundation, billions and billions of dollars, and real influence with both the AI bros and governments around the world, including China. Instead of your voice and time, sir, how about using your money and your influence to go build the frickin' international policy and structure you say we so urgently need?

Then, one day later, another letter. This one authored by OpenAI, and signed by Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Oracle and 100+ others, warning that "in the coming months, AI-enabled cyber attacks will become far more widespread and sophisticated." Sam Altman, on X: "there is not much time to act." And: "only an urgent and intense collective response will work."

Okay, credit where it's due. While still yet another letter, this is the closest thing I’ve seen to finally getting competitors in a room together and rolling up their sleeves on AI safety. Let’s hope it actually works.

The world lost someone extraordinarily remarkable this week.

I hadn’t thought much about Dolly Parton lately, but when I saw the news of her passing, I was struck by how deeply emotional I felt.

And I started to read all the beautiful tributes that that were pouring in from seemingly everywhere and everyone.

What I loved most about reading them all was that, collectively, they demonstrate that it IS possible for us to universally get behind someone who is not just smart and talented, but who is also endlessly kind, generous, humble, and authentic.

And so just putting this out there… let’s make it our mission to find, celebrate, and lift up the people in this world like Dolly.

I shared this AI tip in one of my very first newsletters, but I’m bringing it back again because it’s so simple, fun and meaningful: create personalized songs/anthems for your kids.

I just refreshed my boys’ anthems for the new school year and they are such a big hit that I was inspired to share this AI tip again.

To try: