ICYMI (In Case You Missed It)

In Case You Missed It – 10.21.2026

AI annihilates authenticity. AI lead generation is iffy. What’s the point of pricy Googlebooks? And what to do without Clarity. Here’s what we noticed, in case you missed it:

Authenticity and AI don’t mix

Both AI-use and anti-AI attitudes are on the rise. This, of course, leads to a lot of pushback when people think something might be AI-generated. Incidentally, this sort of thing is why we advocate for disclosing AI-use whenever possible.

An interesting side-effect is the shift in perceived authenticity. Authentic used to mean “not corporate” or “not overly-sanitized,” but with so many corporations pushing their employees to use AI, inauthentic might as well be synonymous with “not AI.”

At this point nearly any imagery or creative might be AI-assisted at minimum. So, while developing the critical thinking necessary to recognize AI might do us all some good, so far the average person doesn’t seem to be very practiced, leading to a lot of bad feelings all around. In the meantime, do what you can to use real images and human efforts, and disclose AI tools when you use them.

The Pinocchio problem

Speaking of AI and authenticity… is anyone else noticing a lot more email pitches from AIs pretending to be humans? The email mentions something I wrote or posted, or something on our website (sure, being noticed is vaguely flattering), then poses as a person with a mysterious related idea or solution they’d love to tell me about. Simply click here to book an appointment. Sometimes the AI is posing as a personal assistant. We’ve played along out of curiosity, and some don’t reveal the whole interaction was AI until just before the appointment.

What’s interesting is that we’ve also gotten emails from companies offering this exact kind of AI lead generation service, where AI will seek out people who have posted something related to what you’re selling, send a customized email complete with a fake humanoid name and a dash of flattery, and set up appointments with the targets.

AI lead generation is actually pretty interesting, but as we’ve said over and over, a human has to be in the action loop as the curator and decision-maker. Pretending to be an interested human in order to get someone’s attention is fundamentally dishonest. And what productive relationship ever started with a lie?

Android lands on laptops, sort of.

In this thorough review of several Googlebooks, Ars Technica wonders… who asked for this? This story caught my eye because I use an Android phone, and I’ve actually owned and loved a few Chromebooks because they were very inexpensive machines that I could take along on motorcycle trips without worrying about damaging the MacBook on my desk.

With the latest evolution in the Chromebook concept, called Googlebooks, Google is doubling down on making the OS work like a mashup of Android and a desktop OS and integrating AI features, but there are a lot of rough edges; not everything translates well from a phone to a laptop.

Worse, the once-incredible price advantage is gone; Googlebooks are now just as costly as any premium laptop, with prices starting at $900 (the MacBook Neo starts at $700). Serviceable Chromebooks recently started around $250-$300, with premium models starting at around $500-$600. We’re sure the software in the new Googlebooks will improve, and it’s great to see Chrome OS evolve into something more… but, uh, what about that pricing?

CLARITY Cloudy

The CLARITY Act recently failed to advance to the Senate, leading to uncertainty about future digital asset regulations and the role of credit unions. This CU Insight article from Divyarani Raghupatruni of Alacriti clearly lays out the major issues and the future possibilities.

The fundamental questions are the fate of “Rewards” (currently issuers cannot pay interest, but intermediaries like wallets and exchanges can, and so deposits are flowing to digital assets), and parity in the regs for credit union issuers. Are digital assets more of a deposit medium, or a medium for exchange?

The CLARITY Act will certainly come up again, and the credit union world is watching carefully to make sure they have a seat at the table.

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