Israel gave final approval Wednesday for a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank that would effectively cut the territory in two. Meanwhile, the IDF said it had begun the first stages of its planned assault to seize Gaza City.
Day: August 20, 2025
The Rise of AI Companions Raises Concerns Over Human Interaction
The increasing popularity of AI companions poses significant implications for human interactions, as experts urge regulators to take action before the situation worsens, reports 24brussels.
AI companions, like the chatbot Alex, created through platforms like Replika, offer users a virtual space for conversation, gaming, and even sharing intimate content. A recent survey highlighted that over 70% of American teenagers have engaged with AI companions, with more than half identifying as regular users.
Services in this sector are growing rapidly, with Replika reporting that more than 30 million accounts have been created, according to CEO Eugenia Kuyda. Another platform, Character.ai, boasts 20 million monthly active users, signaling a trend of increased engagement with AI chatbots. Even established social media platforms like Snapchat are incorporating customizable AI bots into their services.
However, the prevalence of AI companionship raises alarms. Experts highlight the potential degradation of authentic human interaction, exacerbated by the earlier influence of social media. They caution that regulators must not repeat the oversight seen in the social media space, where protective measures for youth are being contemplated years too late.
Svante Gullichsen via Lovable
- Anton Osika cofounded the Swedish vibe coding startup Lovable in 2023.
- The 35-year-old told Business Insider that he looks for four key traits when he’s hiring candidates.
- Osika said he is more interested in a candidate’s ability to learn than the skills they have now.
Lovable CEO Anton Osika says he looks for four key attributes when he hires for his company.
Osika said in an interview with Business Insider on Wednesday that he looks for candidates for his vibe coding startup who demonstrate “slope, breadth, curiosity, and bias to build.”
Firstly, Osika said candidates needed to have “slope, not just skill.” The 35-year-old said that a candidate’s “slope” refers to their ability to pick up new skills and navigate a learning curve.
“I care more about how fast someone learns and adapts than where they are today. If a conversation feels alive, if I walk away having learned something new, that’s a strong sign they’ll thrive in the team and push our ways of working forward,” Osika said.
Secondly, Osika said he looks for “generalists over narrow specialists.” He added that he would rather bring in people “who can do a bit of everything—design, code, product thinking—than someone world-class in just one thing.”
“Range matters when you’re building new categories,” he said.
Thirdly, Osika said he wants to see potential hires demonstrate “first principles thinking.” His company needs people “who don’t just copy playbooks but ask why things are the way they are,” he added.
“That curiosity and ability to reason from scratch is often what gives you an edge,” Osika said.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in an interview back in 2012 that thinking from first principles often results in more innovative ideas.
“The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. We are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it’s like what other people are doing,” Musk told entrepreneur Kevin Rose in 2012.
“It’s mentally easier to reason by analogy rather than from first principles. First principles is kind of a physics way of looking at the world, and what that really means is you kind of boil things down to the most fundamental truths,” Musk added.
Lastly, Osika said he wants to have “builders, not talkers” on his team.
“We’re biased toward people who show they can ship, iterate, and make something real—whether that’s a product, a project, or even just a hack that proves a point,” he said.
The race for AI talent has seen tech giants like Meta and Microsoft offer massive signing bonuses to entice potential hires. Osika, however, said throwing money wouldn’t make recruiting easier for Lovable.
“If I knew who was the perfect engineer to hire, I could maybe step up our compensation bands to get exactly those. But I don’t know who are the best people,” Osika told podcaster Harry Stebbings in an interview that aired Monday.
“So I need to just figure out — are these really, really good people to work with? Are they moldable? Are they going to work well together in this team?” he said.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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Reform Party’s Focus on Traditional Family Values Amid Controversy
In a decisive move, the Reform Party has emphasized its commitment to supporting working parents, explicitly distancing itself from welfare dependency. “We’re talking about working parents only,” stated a party representative. “We are absolutely not talking about families that are completely on benefits, and therefore we are not supporting a benefit culture, because that is absolutely against what Reform stands for,” reports 24brussels.
However, this family-first approach presents challenges for the populist right, particularly for a party already facing criticism over gender issues. Reform aims to reclaim traditional values while navigating a landscape rife with accusations of being anti-woke.
The party’s slogan—“family, community, country”—resonates with conservative principles seen in the United States. Despite this, party member Pochin insists Reform is “absolutely not” inspired by culture wars from across the Atlantic.
“This is just core values stuff,” Pochin continued. “Britain has always been a traditional country with traditional family values, and that seems to have been lost.” She criticized the government for prioritizing support for asylum seekers over initiatives aimed at strengthening family structures, asserting the need to return to “our traditions, our culture, our values — and we believe that starts with the family.”
Patrick Brown, a family policy expert at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, noted the secular nature of British society. “In the U.K., you guys are a more secular society with religion less politically engaged [in discourse],” he explained.
This secularism complicates political messaging. Analysts caution that if leaders like Farage were to adopt more stringent stances on contentious issues such as abortion or same-sex marriage, they could alienate public opinion, including their supporter base, warns O’Geran from More in Common.