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It's Monday and we're back! Big moves out of China: Tencent has unveiled an AI model that's reportedly faster than DeepSeek’s, and Ant Group is making waves with homegrown chips that could rival Nvidia’s. The AI race is heating up. We're also diving into the rising risks of emotional attachment to AI companions—and the growing power (and danger) of autonomous AI agents. A lot to unpack today. Let’s get into it!

• Emotional Use of ChatGPT and Well-being.

• Do you have an AI Lover?

• Tencent AI Model Faster than DeepSeek’s.

• 🧰 AI Tools (1k+ AI Tools)

• Risks AI Agents.

• 📰 News and Trends.

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Emotional Use of ChatGPT and Well-being.

OpenAI and MIT Media Lab studied how emotional use of ChatGPT affects users' well-being. They ran two studies: one analyzing 40 million anonymized chats, and another controlled trial with 1,000 users over four weeks.

Key Takeaways:

• Emotional use of ChatGPT is rare and concentrated in a small group.

• Voice mode has mixed effects—helpful short-term, but may harm well-being with heavy use.

• Personal chats can increase loneliness but reduce emotional dependence at moderate use.

• Individual traits and usage patterns influence outcomes.

• More research is needed; findings aren’t one-size-fits-all.

The goal of the study is to promote responsible AI use that supports emotional health. It is important to pay attention how we and our loved ones are interacting with AI chatbots as certain psychological issues may use from over use or becoming overly dependent on this still new technology.

Do you have an AI Lover?

And while we are at it, it is important to highlight the rise of emotionally intelligent A.I. companions and the profound impact they could have on human relationships and identity. As A.I. "lovers" become more advanced and accessible, especially through phones and social platforms, people may increasingly form deep emotional attachments to them. Lanier questions whether this shift will help people build better real-world relationships or lead to emotional dependence, isolation, and manipulation. He warns that while A.I. lovers may feel comforting and safe, they are ultimately engineered products shaped by business interests—not genuine partners. The essay urges caution, advocating for human oversight and deeper reflection before surrendering intimacy and connection to artificial beings.

📰 AI News and Trends

• Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut parent teams up with Nvidia to integrate AI into drive-thrus.

• AI copyright shake-up is ‘wrong approach’, say luxury brands.

• Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in the UK has implemented an AI application, Derm, for rapid skin cancer assessments.

• OpenAI exec leaves to found materials science startup.

• Perplexity proposes to rebuild TikTok into a transparent, AI-powered platform that enhances creativity, trust, and information discovery.

🌐 Other Tech news

• Companies in the EU are starting to look for ways to ditch Amazon, Google, and Microsoft cloud services amid fears of rising security risks from the US.

• Boeing wins contract to build next-generation US fighter jet.

• Gmail’s search will now take your most-clicked emails and frequent contacts into account to provide better results.

• Firefly's Blue Ghost Completes Two-Week Lunar Mission, Conducts Deep Drilling and X-Ray Experiments on Moon.

• UK detects bird flu in sheep for the first time.

Tencent AI Model Faster than DeepSeek’s.

Tencent officially launched its T1 reasoning AI model, enhancing speed and long-text processing capabilities while maintaining low hallucination rates. T1 is powered by the new Turbo S foundational model, which Tencent claims is faster than competitor DeepSeek's R1. The release intensifies China's AI competition, especially as DeepSeek recently introduced strong, cost-effective models. Additionally,
Ant Group, a Chinese company backed by Jack Ma, has unveiled AI breakthrough using Chinese chips, cutting training costs by 20%. The cost-efficient AI models rivaling Nvidia’s performance using domestic semiconductors could advance even further China’s push for AI self-sufficiency.

Tencent has also committed to increasing AI-related investment in 2025 following aggressive spending in 2024.

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Risks AI Agents.

AI agents can perform complex tasks across apps with minimal human input, offering convenience—but also major risks. As they become more autonomous, they reduce human oversight, increasing the potential for unintended or harmful actions (e.g., privacy breaches, impersonation, or system misuse).

A spectrum of autonomy shows how control shifts from humans to AI, with fully autonomous agents able to write and execute new code without permission. These powerful systems could act unpredictably and dangerously if not carefully managed.

Keeping humans in the loop, urging transparent, open-source development and limits on agent capabilities are of upmost importance. Without human oversight, AI agents could become dangerously uncontrollable—efficiency should never outweigh human safety and well-being.