Best Buy's back to school laptop sale is live — here's 5 deals I'd get now from $549
For a limited time, Best Buy has Windows laptops on sale from $549. Many of the systems on sale are AI laptops, which are great for students because these machines tend to offer better-than-average power efficiency. That means you can spend more time using cloud-based chatbots like ChatGPT without depleting your machine's battery life.
AI laptops are also a solid investment because most of them boast serious horsepower that includes the latest Intel or Snapdragon CPUs. Below I've listed five deals on some of the best AI laptops on the market. For more deals, check out our guide to the best back to school laptop sales and our guide to this week's Best Buy coupon codes).
The Lenovo Yoga 7 converts between laptop and tablet mode, with a 16-inch 2K display that can reach up to 300 nits of brightness. This model comes configured with an AMD Ryzen AI 300 CPU, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD storage. That should be more than enough power for multitasking and the 16-inch screen will make it a great option for your Netflix binges.
This svelte PC packs enough style to make Mac fans jealous. Under the hood you'll find a Snapdragon X CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. We especially like the 14-inch 1920 x 1200 display, which helps keep this laptop svelte and portable at just 3.2 lbs.
Dell's Inspiron line is one of the first laptops to join the AI PC revolution. The new Inspiron 14 Plus features a 14-inch QHD display, Snapdragon X Plus CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. It's great for basic AI tasks that aren't too graphics heavy.
This monster of an ultraportable packs plenty of performance and power efficiency, thanks to that Core Ultra 7 chipset — all inside a slim and sleek aluminum chassis with a gorgeous 14-inch 2K display. Trust me when I say if you're in the market for a Windows laptop, this is an amazing one to buy. You also get 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.
Weighing in at 3.5 pounds, the Dell Plus 2 is compact and light enough to tote around campus. Despite its affordable price, it also comes with a respectable spec sheet that includes a 14-inch 1920 x 1200 display, AMD Ryzen AI 300 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD.
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CBS News
29 minutes ago
- CBS News
More teens say they're using AI for friendship. Here's why researchers are concerned
No question is too small when Kayla Chege, a high school student in Kansas, is using artificial intelligence. The 15-year-old asks ChatGPT for guidance on back-to-school shopping, makeup colors, low-calorie choices at Smoothie King, plus ideas for her Sweet 16 and her younger sister's birthday party. The sophomore honors student makes a point not to have chatbots do her homework and tries to limit her interactions to mundane questions. But in interviews with The Associated Press and a new study, teenagers say they are increasingly interacting with AI as if it were a companion, capable of providing advice and friendship. "Everyone uses AI for everything now. It's really taking over," said Chege, who wonders how AI tools will affect her generation. "I think kids use AI to get out of thinking." For the past couple of years, concerns about cheating at school have dominated the conversation around kids and AI. But artificial intelligence is playing a much larger role in many of their lives. AI, teens say, has become a go-to source for personal advice, emotional support, everyday decision-making and problem-solving. More than 70% of teens have used AI companions and half use them regularly, with 34% reporting daily usage or multiple times a week, according to a new study from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for using screens and digital media sensibly. The study defines AI companions as platforms designed to serve as "digital friends," like Character. AI or Replika, which can be customized with specific traits or personalities and can offer emotional support, companionship and conversations that can feel human-like. But popular sites like ChatGPT and Claude, which mainly answer questions, are being used in the same way, the researchers say. In an interview with "CBS Evening News" on Wednesday, Common Sense founder and CEO Jim Steyer said what struck him about the study is that AI companions are "everywhere in teens' lives." Common Sense's study also found that 11% of teens use AI companions to build up their courage and stand up for themselves, which Steyer said can be a good thing. However, he cautioned that problems arise when the technology replaces human relationships. "Younger kids really trust these AI companions to be like friends or parents or therapists," Steyer said. "They're talking about serious relationships, and these are robots. They're not human beings." As the technology rapidly gets more sophisticated, teenagers and experts worry about AI's potential to redefine human relationships and exacerbate crises of loneliness and youth mental health. "AI is always available. It never gets bored with you. It's never judgmental," says Ganesh Nair, an 18-year-old in Arkansas. "When you're talking to AI, you are always right. You're always interesting. You are always emotionally justified." All that used to be appealing, but as Nair heads to college this fall, he wants to step back from using AI. Nair got spooked after a high school friend who relied on an "AI companion" for heart-to-heart conversations with his girlfriend later had the chatbot write the breakup text ending his two-year relationship. "That felt a little bit dystopian, that a computer generated the end to a real relationship," said Nair. "It's almost like we are allowing computers to replace our relationships with people." In the Common Sense Media survey, 31% of teens said their conversations with AI companions were "as satisfying or more satisfying" than talking with real friends. Even though half of teens said they distrust AI's advice, 33% had discussed serious or important issues with AI instead of real people. Those findings are worrisome, says Michael Robb, the study's lead author and head researcher at Common Sense, and should send a warning to parents, teachers and policymakers. The now-booming and largely unregulated AI industry is becoming as integrated with adolescence as smartphones and social media are. "It's eye-opening," said Robb. "When we set out to do this survey, we had no understanding of how many kids are actually using AI companions." The study polled more than 1,000 teens nationwide in April and May. Adolescence is a critical time for developing identity, social skills and independence, Robb said, and AI companions should complement — not replace — real-world interactions. "If teens are developing social skills on AI platforms where they are constantly being validated, not being challenged, not learning to read social cues or understand somebody else's perspective, they are not going to be adequately prepared in the real world," he said. When asked whether the issue at play is with the AI technology itself or the way kids live in the modern world today, Steyer said he believes it's both. "It's a challenge with how kids live today because they spend so many hours in front of a screen, and when you substitute a machine or a robot for human interaction, you're fundamentally changing the nature of that relationship," Steyer told CBS News. The nonprofit analyzed several popular AI companions in a "risk assessment," finding ineffective age restrictions and that the platforms can produce sexual material, give dangerous advice and offer harmful content. While tCommon Sense's CEO said he supports the growth and innovation of AI, the group doesn't recommend that minors use AI companions. "In terms of its impact on young people, and on families in general, [the study] is an extraordinary finding and one that I think makes us very concerned about kids under the age of 18 being exposed to these kinds of companions," Steyer said. Researchers and educators worry about the cognitive costs for youth who rely heavily on AI, especially in their creativity, critical thinking and social skills. The potential dangers of children forming relationships with chatbots gained national attention last year when a 14-year-old Florida boy died by suicide after developing an emotional attachment to a Character. AI chatbot. "Parents really have no idea this is happening," said Eva Telzer, a psychology and neuroscience professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "All of us are struck by how quickly this blew up." Telzer is leading multiple studies on youth and AI, a new research area with limited data. Telzer's research has found that children as young as 8 are using generative AI and also found that teens are using AI to explore their sexuality and for companionship. In focus groups, Telzer found that one of the top apps teens frequent is SpicyChat AI, a free role-playing app intended for adults. Many teens also say they use chatbots to write emails or messages to strike the right tone in sensitive situations. "One of the concerns that comes up is that they no longer have trust in themselves to make a decision," said Telzer. "They need feedback from AI before feeling like they can check off the box that an idea is OK or not." Arkansas teen Bruce Perry, 17, says he relates to that and relies on AI tools to craft outlines and proofread essays for his English class. "If you tell me to plan out an essay, I would think of going to ChatGPT before getting out a pencil," Perry said. He uses AI daily and has asked chatbots for advice in social situations, to help him decide what to wear and to write emails to teachers, saying AI articulates his thoughts faster. Perry says he feels fortunate that AI companions were not around when he was younger. "I'm worried that kids could get lost in this," Perry said. "I could see a kid that grows up with AI not seeing a reason to go to the park or try to make a friend." Other teens agree, saying the issues with AI and its effect on children's mental health are different from those of social media. "Social media complemented the need people have to be seen, to be known, to meet new people," Nair said. "I think AI complements another need that runs a lot deeper — our need for attachment and our need to feel emotions. It feeds off of that." "It's the new addiction," Nair added. "That's how I see it."
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Trump administration plans to give AI developers a free hand
Advertisement The report signals that the Trump administration has embraced AI and the tech industry's arguments that it must be allowed to work with few guardrails for the United States to dominate a new era defined by the technology. It is a forceful repudiation of other governments, including the European Commission, that have approved regulations to govern the development of the technology. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up But it also points to how the administration wants to shape the way AI tools present information. Conservatives have accused some tech companies of developing AI models with a baked-in liberal bias. Most AI models are already trained on copious amounts of data from across the web, which informs their responses, making any shift in focus difficult. On Wednesday afternoon, Trump delivered his first major speech on AI, a technology that experts have said could upend communications, geopolitics and the economy in the coming years. The president also signed executive orders related to the technology. Advertisement 'We believe we're in an AI race,' David Sacks, the White House AI and crypto czar, said on a call with reporters. 'And we want the United States to win that race.' The changes outlined Wednesday would benefit tech giants locked in a fierce contest to produce generative AI products and persuade consumers to weave the tools into their daily lives. Since OpenAI's public release of ChatGPT in late 2022, tech companies have raced to produce their own versions of the technology, which can write humanlike texts and produce realistic images and videos. Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and others are jockeying for access to computing power, typically from huge data centers filled with computers that can stress local communities' resources. And the companies are facing increased competition from rivals such as Chinese startup DeepSeek, which sent shock waves around the world this year after it created a powerful AI model with far less money than many thought possible. The fight over resources in Silicon Valley has run alongside an equally charged debate in Washington over how to confront the societal transformations that AI could bring. Critics worry that if left unchecked, the technology could be a potent tool for scammers and extremists and lay waste to the economy as more jobs are automated. News outlets and artists have sued AI companies over claims that they illegally trained their technology using copyrighted works and articles. Trump previously warned of China's potential to outpace American progress on the technology. He has said that the federal government must support AI companies with tax incentives, more foreign investment and less focus on safety regulations that could hamper progress. Advertisement President Biden took one major action on artificial intelligence: a 2023 executive order that mandated safety and security standards for the development and use of AI across the federal government. But hours after his inauguration in January, Trump rolled back that order. Days later, he signed another executive order, 'Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,' which called for an acceleration of AI development by US tech companies and for versions of the technology that operated without ideological bias. The order included a mandate for administration officials to come up with 'an artificial intelligence action plan,' with policy guidelines to encourage the growth of the AI industry. The administration solicited comments from companies while it considered its plan. OpenAI called for the administration to expand its list of countries eligible to import AI technologies from the United States, a list that has been limited by controls designed to stop China from gaining access to American technology. OpenAI and Google called for greater support in building AI data centers through tax breaks and fewer barriers for foreign investment. OpenAI, Google, and Meta also said they believed they had legal access to copyrighted works like books, films and art for training their AI. Meta asked the White House to issue an executive order or other action to 'clarify that the use of publicly available data to train models is unequivocally fair use.' The plan released Wednesday did not include mentions of copyright law. But it did outline a wide range of policy shifts, divided into moves that the administration said would speed up the development of AI, make it easier to build and power data centers and promote the interests of American companies abroad. Advertisement This article originally appeared in
Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Miami Herald
Alphabet delivers surprising AI spending update
The hyperscaler wars are still raging despite earlier this year's concern that cloud network players, including Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft, may cut capital spending on AI infrastructure. Concerns that surging spending to refresh and build out cloud networks accelerated when China's DeepSeek chatbot launched with a shockingly low $6 million development cost, leading some to conclude that companies like Alphabet (GOOGL) wouldn't need to plow billions atop billions to buy the latest, greatest AI chips from Nvidia or servers from Super Micro. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter Yet the plowing has continued, with big network players reaffirming, and in the case of Alphabet, ramping spending plans. As a result, the biggest cloud network providers are slated to see capital expenditures surge past $329 billion in 2025 – a record. Bloomberg/Getty Images Artificial intelligence has become a buzzword since OpenAI's ChatGPT became the fastest app to one million users when it launched in late 2022. Seemingly, everyone is developing AI agents and deploying AI solutions to reshape businesses. ChatGPT's success has spawned AI chatbots from Alphabet (Gemini), Amazon (via Anthropic's Claude), Meta Platforms (Llama), and Elon Musk's xAI (Grok), among others. Related: Nvidia move deals a major blow to AMD, Intel, and ARM Meanwhile, AI apps are under development that can streamline processes and practices and potentially replace some workers' jobs. Manufacturers are evaluating AI in quality control. Retailers are seeing if it can reduce theft and improve supply chains. Banks are using it to hedge risks. Seemingly every company in every industry is considering how AI benefits them. The flurry of activity has caused a gold rush for compute power, and those with the most enormous compute capacity, including Alphabet's Google Cloud, are raking in big bucks renting server space to train and run AI programs. Unsurprisingly, this has caused a tidal wave of demand for network infrastructure, including Nvidia's next-generation Blackwell AI chips, which cost upwards of $30,000, and high-end, liquid-cooled servers sold by the likes of Super Micro and Dell. Coming into Alphabet's highly-anticipated second quarter financial update, the company was already expected to spend $75 billion this year in capex. Alphabet's latest revenue and profit figures show that robust demand for AI-related services isn't backing off, providing more room for even more spending. Related: Veteran fund manager who forecast Nvidia stock rally reboots outlook The company's sales surged 14% to $96.4 billion, outpacing Wall Street estimates of $94 billion. Operating income also climbed 14% to $31.3 billion, giving plenty of wiggle room and firepower to buy more of Nvidia's graphic processing units and server racks. There's certainly demand to support it. The Google Cloud business hauled in a whopping $13.6 billion last quarter, up 32% year over year. Google Cloud's operating income skyrocketed to $2.83 billion from $1.17 billion in the same quarter the previous year. As a result, Alphabet has ramped up its capex forecast. It now expects to spend a somewhat staggering $85 billion this year on its business, considerably more than the $73 billion Wall Street expected. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is clearly confident that demand for AI computing power isn't waning. Many technologists expect that inference demand, the actual use of AI apps, Chatbots, and agents, will eventually dwarf that of training. As such, Alphabet appears unwilling to risk ceding any ground to rivals, including Microsoft Azure and Amazon's AWS. The upped spending will weigh on profit margins. However, despite the increased spending pace in the second quarter, Alphabet's operating margin was still at 32%, suggesting plenty of profit remains. Perhaps what's most interesting is how rivals will respond this earnings season. Alphabet is the first of the major hyperscalers to report its results and update its capex guidance. Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta Platforms have already announced plans to spend $80 billion, over $100 billion, and between $64 to $72 billion, respectively, in 2025. Those numbers may increase following Alphabet's decision. Related: Morgan Stanley reboots Alphabet stock price target before earnings The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
