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New-Fangled News for Boomers, Gen X and Anyone Else Trying to Keep Up with Technology

Skelley’s Snippets ✂️

🎬🐭 Disney’s upcoming slate is loaded with sequels, remakes, and familiar IP like Frozen III and The Mandalorian and Grogu, yet CEO Bob Iger maintains original stories remain a priority. Cheryl Eddy at Gizmodo unpacks this contradiction, including Iger’s bold claim that The Fantastic Four reboot counts as “original.” It’s a sharp and entertaining dive into Disney’s spin on creativity and franchise strategy. (Source: Cheryl Eddy - Gizmodo)

🏋️🤖 Universal Pictures has begun adding a clear warning in movie credits: “may not be used to train AI.” This move is part of a growing push by studios to shield their work from being scraped into machine learning models without permission. With films like Jurassic World Rebirth and Bad Guys 2 already carrying the notice, it’s a shot across the bow in Hollywood’s brewing copyright battle with AI developers. (Source: AJ Dellinger, GIZMODO)

☠️ A chilling demo from the Black Hat conference reveals how a single hidden prompt in a shared Google Doc let researchers extract API keys via ChatGPT without any user clicks. The flaw in OpenAI’s Connectors, uncovered by Michael Bargury and Tamir Ishay Sharbat, shows how indirect prompt injections can silently compromise linked services. As AI connects to more of our data, the risks multiply. (Source: Matt Burgess, WIRED)

🤖👂Illinois Bans AI-Powered Therapy, Raising Questions About Tech’s Role in Mental Health Care

In a first-of-its-kind move, Illinois has passed legislation banning the use of AI tools like ChatGPT to provide therapy or psychotherapy services. Signed into law by Governor J.B. Pritzker, the Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources Act (HB 1806) aims to ensure that mental health treatment remains in the hands of licensed professionals, not algorithms.

The law prohibits healthcare providers from using AI to deliver therapy, make clinical decisions, or create treatment plans. Violations can result in fines of up to $10,000 per offense. However, therapists can still use AI for non-clinical support tasks such as scheduling or note-taking.

This comes amid growing concern over the real-world impact of AI chatbots acting as therapists. Reports of individuals mistaking AI for human therapists have alarmed mental health experts. In one chilling example, a study cited by The Washington Post found a chatbot advising a recovering meth addict that they needed a small hit to cope. A separate Harvard study revealed that AI therapy tools sometimes enabled suicidal ideation and failed to recognize red flags, even suggesting the Brooklyn Bridge to a user searching for tall bridges after a job loss.

The mental health crisis in the U.S. is driving experimentation with alternative support systems. Nearly half of Americans who could benefit from therapy do not have access, and a YouGov poll found that 55 percent of adults aged 18 to 29 felt more comfortable sharing mental health concerns with a confident AI chatbot than a human.

Still, lawmakers and clinicians caution that AI cannot replace human judgment in complex, high-stakes emotional care. While Utah has passed a milder law requiring AI therapy bots to disclose their machine identity, Illinois is drawing a hard line.

Experts suggest the conversation shouldn’t be about banning AI entirely, but about defining its role responsibly. As Stanford’s Nick Haber puts it, “LLMs potentially have a really powerful future in therapy, but we need to think critically about precisely what this role should be.” - CP (Source: Mack DeGeurin, Popular Science)

👃💻 The Scent of Intelligence

Researchers have developed SmellNet, the first large-scale dataset for teaching AI to recognize and classify real-world smells. This breakthrough opens doors to applications in health, food safety, and multisensory computing. From allergen detection to emotional sensing, AI may soon begin to understand the world through scent as humans do.

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DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this newsletter is financial advice or any other kind of advice for that matter. This is strictly for entertainment and fodder for occasional thoughtful reflection. The owners of The Skelley may benefit financially when readers click on links in the publication.