Science

Is your dog one of the gifted learners discovered in this new research?

It isn’t your imagination, your dog might be eavesdropping

Most dogs can get their cute little heads around a few human words. I get nervous just typing ‘walk’ out of fear that my pup will come running into the room with high expectations. Food, bed, dinner… chicken. Nobody bats an eye at what is, really, an amazing bit of interspecies communication.

But a new Hungarian-Austrian study suggests some dogs take this much further. Researchers found a group of pups, now dubbed “Gifted Word Learners,” who seem to absorb new words just by overhearing us.

And if you suspect your dog might be one of these linguistic overachievers, Erik Barnes breaks down what this discovery means and how owners might help those skills grow. Don’t worry. There’s still no evidence that dogs can spell. Yet.

This job is hard. I don’t think you get it. Try hitting a deadline after typing “talking dog” into a search engine for work. Tabbing back to the doc is brutal.

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And what did we learn*?

Yesterday, we shared a story about what has gone wrong in American higher education. I wanted to know how GOOD readers feel about the ROI of college today. Does college still make sense?

• Not at today's prices. The math just doesn't math anymore. (17.0%)

• The value of a college education just can't be overstated. (9.6%)

• Ask me again when I've paid off these student loans. (3.2%)

• It depends. On the school, the debt, and what you want to do. (64.9%)

Science & Tech

AI is running the standard tech playbook in fast-forward

Every tech platform has a honeymoon phase, AI decided to skip its own.

Remember early Facebook when the feed was friends sharing their lives? Or early Uber, when drivers were paid relatively fairly and fees were rational? Boy, those were the good ol’ days. Alas, we know how that went.

If you were hoping AI would break that cycle, brace yourself. Research from 2023 shows AI models were already surprisingly good at persuasive selling. The uncomfortable part is not that AI can sell, but how quietly the behavior is spreading into tools we are being trained to trust. This isn’t coming soon; data mining, privacy infringement, and targeted ads are in many mainstream AIs today.

The good news is that, as Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders report, understanding how this works gives you leverage. There are concrete things you can do to spot manipulation and protect yourself before this becomes the default setting.

Culture

Americans are starting to wean themselves off their screen addictions

Which generation is kicking the habit first?

It isn’t a hot take to say that screens will be this era’s cigarettes. Someday, future generations will marvel that we used to scroll in restaurants or watch movies on planes with kids nearby. The metaphor tracks so well that I have to actively stop myself from running it into the ground. And that easily imagined future is starting today.

More than half of Americans say they’re cutting down on screen time. The reasons are broad, but if you had to put a surgeon general’s warning on each screen, it might say, “Warning, screen time is addictive and has been shown to cause anxiety, dissatisfaction, and irritability.”

But, as Erik Barnes reports, that 50% of people cutting back is not spread evenly among age groups. Some generations are finding it much easier to put the phone down than others. And the group struggling most might surprise you.

On January 15, 2001, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launched their update to the experts-only Nupedia, which had stalled out. The new site, Wikipedia, debuted 25 years ago today, and would eventually grow to over 65 million articles across more than 300 languages.

Anyone can contribute to Wikipedia as long as they conform to the three magic rules that make Wikipedia such a rich resource: the point of view must be neutral, statements must be verifiable, and no original research is allowed (all claims are backed by reliable published sources). How much can you trust Wikipedia? Research has shown it to be as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica.

The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation funds projects to keep the stories accurate, but the site is still known to struggle with breaking news and biographies, where bias is more difficult to remove.

The best way to use the amazing resource is to treat it as a jumping-off point when doing research, follow the attribution links, and best of all, if you find something that you can prove is wrong, well… fix it!

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It’s as good a reason as any. CHEERS!

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