📲 Duolingo Gets Spicy with Surprise Calls

In today’s email:

🦉 Duolingo's bringing AI into your language learning with surprise calls from Lily, their animated chat buddy—now upgraded with GPT-4 for an even more engaging experience.

🔮 2025 is shaping up to be the year of AI agents, national security power plays, and laws struggling to keep up. Here's what the experts are predicting!

🧬 AI is stepping into cancer treatment with miniproteins, offering a new hope for precision therapy in the battle against cancer.

Intrigued? Keep scrolling!

🦉 Duolingo Can Surprise Call You

Duolingo is diving headfirst into AI. They've been dabbling with it since 2012, but recent generative AI magic has cranked things up and introduced Video Call. It's powered by GPT-4 and lets you chat face-to-face with Lily, their cartoon character.

What’s new with Video Call: 

• Lily got an upgrade: She’s more expressive and can surprise-call you. No pressure.

• Call transcripts: So you can cringe at your mistakes later.

• Expanded languages: German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, and Korean are in the mix.

But there’s a catch—it’s only for Duolingo Max subscribers ($30/month or $168/year).

Why all this effort? Speaking > just reading or listening, according to science. And Duolingo thinks people are less embarrassed messing up in front of AI than real humans. Fair point, right?

Duolingo swears your data is safe, only used to improve features, and there are strict controls over recordings.

Is it worth the price? That’s for you and Lily to decide.

🔮 What’s Coming in 2025?

AI in 2025 is going next level. Experts are saying it’s not just about chatbots answering your random midnight questions anymore—it’s about full-on agents that might as well be your digital coworkers. Here are 5 predictions according to the TIME:

• Autonomous AI Agents: Forget chatbots, think digital assistants on steroids. These bad boys will handle everything from scheduling appointments to writing software. But watch out—they might mess up, especially with sensitive info. (Hope your agent doesn’t “accidentally” buy 50 inflatable pool flamingos on your card.)

• AI as a National Security Big Shot: Governments are treating AI like the next space race. The U.S. is already blocking China from getting fancy chips and teaming up with tech giants.

• Laws Can’t Keep Up: The E.U.’s AI Act is leading the charge, but everywhere else? Regulation is slooooow. Expect chaos and loopholes.

• Investors Want Their Money Back: With billions poured into AI, companies need to deliver. Healthcare’s looking good, but some markets—like call centers in developing nations—might bear the brunt of shortcuts.

• AI Video Explosion: Tools like OpenAI’s Sora are making video-generation a thing. Imagine AI helping you fix your bike via smart glasses.

🧬 Tiny AI Proteins Ready to Battle Cancer

AI Proteins and the University of Missouri are teaming up to shake things up in cancer therapy! They’re using AI-powered tech to design brand-new miniproteins that can diagnose and treat cancer. Think of it like creating tiny robots that know exactly how to zap cancer cells. Here's the breakdown:

• What’s the tech? AI Proteins uses AI, robotics, and synthetic biology to design “miniproteins” from scratch. These are small but powerful molecules with the potential to treat cancer more precisely.

• How does it work? The idea is to use these miniproteins to target and destroy cancer cells by targeting multiple tumor markers at once (way better than the old single-marker approach).

• Why’s it exciting? Current cancer therapies are a bit like trying to hit a moving target. This could make treatments smarter by targeting more antigens, which could solve problems like resistance or tumors that are hard to treat.

The duo hopes this breakthrough will move from research to actual treatments and tackle challenges that have been plaguing cancer therapy for ages. It's a big step towards potentially improving patient outcomes.

Other cool AI stuff that is trending right now 🔥🔥

🎶 From AI jams to jail time: how one guy allegedly turned fake tunes into $10M royalties with bot. - Read more

💾 The US-China tech war just leveled up with the US slapping export controls on AI chips, setting the stage for a global tech showdown. - Read more

📚 Teens are turning to ChatGPT for homework help, but with math missteps and history goofs, it's clear they're not getting a free pass—here’s why the AI might not be their smartest study buddy. - Read more

📝 Google’s giving away AI in Gmail and Docs for free, but don’t get too excited—it’s bumping up the price of Workspace just enough to make you notice. - Read more

🧑‍💼 Hold onto your job while you can—AI is coming for half of them, and it’s not just the robots we have to worry about. - Read more