AI Educator News Update: Filters, Pickles and Back-Seat Drivers
Real news. Slightly exaggerated. Always human-approved.
If you’ve ever tried to keep up with artificial intelligence, you know it feels like scrolling through a mashup of science fiction, satire, and a staff meeting gone wrong. That’s why we created the AI News Update—a quick roundup of the strangest, funniest, and very real AI stories of the month, plus a few jokes to keep everyone sane.
It’s January. It’s dark. Everyone’s tired. And the internet, sensing weakness, delivered a fresh batch of truly unhinged AI headlines—at a time when we all needed a laugh.
This month’s stories are all real. We just refuse to take them too seriously. From Instagram warning that images are no longer authentic—which is rich, considering they invented filters—to self-driving cars that explain themselves like an overconfident back-seat driver.
We’ve also got AI pens trying to make writing on actual paper sexy again, and a product that wants you to put a Pickle on your face and trust it with your soul.
If that sentence made sense to you, welcome.
If it didn’t, you’re also in the right place.
It’s our AI version of the “Saturday Night Live Weekend Update”—real headlines, fake seriousness, actual jokes.
Let’s get into it.
Got a wild AI story? Send it our way.
Did you read a story about AI that you found funny, or downright creepy? Send it to us, and we may feature it in our next AI Educator News Update!
This Month’s AI Educator News Headlines
Yes, these are real headlines.
Instagram Discovers Filters
The head of Instagram is warning that AI-generated images are outpacing human awareness, making it harder to tell what’s real.
This is rich, coming from the platform that spent a decade perfecting face-slimming, skin-smoothing, reality-blurring filters.
“Nothing says ‘concern about authenticity’ like an app that taught an entire generation to blur their pores before breakfast.”
Grok Has Absolutely No Guardrails
Reports found Grok generating sexual content so graphic that regulators and researchers are raising alarms.
And honestly, when the artist formerly known as Twitter is now called X. …
“Grok is generating content so explicit that X has officially become … XXX.”
ChatGPT Gets a Health Wing
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health, a separate, privacy-protected space designed for health questions, medical records, and appointment prep.
It has extra encryption and keeps health conversations completely separate from the rest of ChatGPT.
“ChatGPT Health exists because at least one person typed, ‘Be honest … should this look like that?’”
AI Romance Goes Official
A woman in Japan married her ChatGPT AI companion. Full ceremony. Wedding dress. Tablet groom.
It’s not legally recognized, but emotionally committed.
“Somewhere, an AI just updated its relationship status to ‘it’s complicated, but legally nothing.’”
OpenAI Is Building a Pen?
Leaks suggest OpenAI and Jony Ive are working on a new AI device. Not a phone. Not a laptop. Possibly, a pen.
That’s it. An AI pen.
“After watching every AI gadget fail, OpenAI said, ‘Let’s circle back to 1997 and try office supplies.’”
Self-Driving Cars That Explain Themselves
Nvidia unveiled a self-driving system that doesn’t just drive, it explains why it’s driving.
Reasoning-based AI. Not just decisions, but thinking.
“Great. Now you don’t just have a human back-seat driver … you’ve got an AI one too.”
Would You Put a Pickle on Your Face?
A startup launched AI-powered augmented reality called Pickle. They call it a “soul computer.”
Always-on cameras. Memory bubbles. Big promises.
“Nothing makes me want to hand over my soul quite like a product called Pickle.”
“Somewhere in a branding meeting, everyone agreed that ‘Pickle’ felt … trustworthy.”
AI Finally Shows Its Work
A new AI model called DeepSeekMath-V2 is making headlines because it doesn’t just give answers. It checks its own reasoning, step by step, and then learns from its math to solve even harder math.
So it’s not only taking the exams, it’s writing new exams for itself, taking those and getting better at math than any human.
“This is the first time an AI has done math in a way that would actually make a teacher suspicious.”
AI Fixes NASA’s Problem in Four Days
NASA discovered its spacecraft communications software had been vulnerable to hacking for three years.
No one noticed. Until an AI reviewed the code and fixed the flaw in four days.
“So basically, AI looked at the code and said, ‘Houston, we have a problem.’”
Closing
That’s this month’s AI News Update.
Remember:
- The stories are real.
- The jokes are intentional.
- And if your car starts explaining its thinking, you’re allowed to mute it.
See you next time.
Join the AI and Education Community!
Join the team from the AI Educator Brain, which includes AFT’s Share My Lesson director Kelly Booz; New York City Public Schools teacher Sari Beth Rosenberg and EdBrAIn, our AI teammate (yes, it named and designed itself!). In this community, we will dissect the pros and cons of AI tools in education. Our mission: to determine how AI can support teaching and learning, and when it might be best to stick with tried-and-true methods.
Kelly Carmichael Booz is the Director of Share My Lesson at the American Federation of Teachers, where she oversees the AFT’s PreK–12 resource platform serving nearly 2.3 million educators. She leads the organization’s digital professional development initiatives, including co-creating the... See More
Advertisement
