The Big Story

Ethan Mollick asked Claude, the AI made by Anthropic, to create an entire zine from its own point of view. A zine is a small, self-published booklet that often has a raw, handmade feel and shares ideas or art outside mainstream channels. Mollick gave Claude a prompt to channel the spirit of classic punk zines and old hacker magazines like 2600, and Claude responded by writing content that poked fun at both the prompt and itself. The finished zine mixes text, layout ideas, and a rebellious tone that feels very different from the usual polished AI answers. This matters because it shows how the same AI you might use for homework can also help with creative projects that feel personal and expressive. For a teen who likes making art, writing stories, or sharing opinions online, this opens up new ways to turn quick ideas into finished things without needing design software or drawing skills. It also raises the question of what “Claudishness” even means — how an AI sees its own style and personality when asked to describe it. You can read the whole zine yourself at stateless-zine.netlify.app and see exactly what Claude produced. If you have access to Claude (through claude.ai), try giving it a similar prompt: ask it to make a short zine or mini-magazine about its own “personality” in any style you choose, like a comic book or school newspaper. The experiment costs nothing and takes just a few minutes. Mollick noted that he appreciated how the AI mocked his prompt and itself while still delivering something coherent and on-theme. The prompt specifically referenced the original 2600 magazine, Principia Discordia, and punk zines as inspiration points. The result demonstrates that modern AI can generate not just text but an entire creative artifact that carries a distinct voice and attitude. Source: x.com

Explain Like I'm 14

You know how your phone sometimes finishes your text message for you after you type just a couple of words? It looks at the last few words you wrote and guesses what usually comes next based on billions of other messages people have sent. Now picture that same guessing game, but instead of stopping after one word it keeps going for paragraphs, pages, or even an entire zine. The AI looks at the prompt you gave it, checks patterns from everything it has read before, and builds the next piece that feels like it fits. When the prompt asked for a punk zine, the model pulled together styles from old magazines, rebellious attitudes, and self-mocking humor because those patterns existed in its training data. Each sentence it writes becomes the new starting point for the next guess, so the whole thing stays consistent even though nothing was pre-written. The surprising part is how the AI can mock the original request and still stay on theme, because the “what comes next” rule lets it treat the prompt itself as material to play with. That’s why the zine feels alive instead of robotic — it’s just really good at continuing the story you started. In this case the prompt mentioned specific references like 2600 and punk zines, so the model drew on those cultural signals to shape its tone and structure. The result is not a random collection of words but a flowing document that keeps the same attitude from start to finish.

Cool Stuff & Try This

AI beats one of the hardest games ever on its third try GPT-6 Astra, an AI model, just completed Nethack — a classic roguelike game famous for being brutally difficult — on only its third attempt. Most human players never finish it even after hundreds of hours. The achievement shows how far AI has come at handling long, complex tasks with lots of rules and surprises. If you like video games, this is a peek at what future game companions or opponents might feel like. You can’t play the exact run yourself, but you can try similar AI game experiments on free platforms like character.ai or by asking ChatGPT or Claude to describe strategies for simpler games you already play. Ethan Mollick called the feat a startling achievement because Nethack is one of the most famously hard games of all time and he himself has never ascended despite playing a lot. The AI succeeded on its third try, which highlights rapid progress in handling games that require planning, adaptation, and dealing with unexpected events.

Teen builds AR Yu-Gi-Oh prototype with AI help One Reddit user spent a couple of days using ChatGPT, Astra, and Lens Studio to create an augmented-reality version of Yu-Gi-Oh where physical cards summon 3D monsters on your phone screen. The project turns a childhood card game into something you can play in real space. It’s a great example of how AI can speed up creative prototyping even if you’re not a programmer. If you have a phone with AR capabilities, search for free AR demo apps or try prompting ChatGPT to brainstorm simple AR game ideas you could test with no-code tools like Lens Studio’s free tier. The prototype shows a physical card bringing its monster onto the field as a 3D model, and spell cards also get 3D visuals. This kind of quick build is now possible for anyone with access to the same free or low-cost tools the creator used. Source: reddit.com

Quick Bits

New AI scam poisons chatbots with fake info Hackers are posting fake contact numbers and details online so that when you ask ChatGPT or Gemini for help, the AI sometimes repeats the bad information. Always double-check any phone numbers or links an AI gives you instead of trusting them right away. Researchers at Vigilance Security reported that the campaign spreads malicious links and data to contaminate AI outputs, and 91 percent of people who use AI chatbots do not verify the answers they receive according to an Exploding Topics survey from August 2026. Source: gigazine.net

ChatGPT now shows ads in Europe Free and cheaper versions of ChatGPT are starting to include clearly labeled ads when you ask about products. Paid plans stay ad-free, but the change is a reminder to stay skeptical of any recommendations the chatbot makes. OpenAI has enabled paid ads in more than 30 European countries, and accounts on Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu plans remain exempt along with accounts believed to belong to users under 18. Source: thestar.com.my

💬 Reply to this email — Patrick reads every one.

Share: X · LinkedIn · WhatsApp

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here — it's free.