Welcome back to Lately, The Globe’s weekly tech newsletter. If you have feedback or just want to say hello to a real-life human, send me an e-mail.
In this week’s issue:
🤖 The Tumbler Ridge shooter’s troubling ChatGPT conversations
💊 GLP-1s and the splintering of the body positivity movement online
🍔 AI recipes take over
🐵 Meet 2026’s viral animal star: Punch the monkey
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Tumbler Ridge shooter and ChatGPT
In the weeks after the deadly attack in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., more details about the shooter’s online life have been revealed. She wrote on Reddit about dealing with suicidal thoughts, visited a website known for posting uncensored violent content, and on Roblox, created a game that simulates carrying out a mass shooting. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that employees at OpenAI debated alerting law enforcement about her interactions with ChatGPT. In June, 2025, the shooter described scenarios involving gun violence, which were flagged by the chatbot’s automated review system. Some employees urged the company to alert Canadian authorities, but ultimately its leaders decided not to.
In a letter released Thursday, OpenAI said it has since made changes that would have resulted in the content being flagged to law enforcement. It is promising it will take further steps to satisfy concerns raised by the federal government. This week Canadian ministers warned that legislative changes could be introduced to regulate AI companies, but exactly how that regulation could look remains murky, as questions swirl around the power and responsibility wielded by these companies.
Social-media platforms are grappling with how to protect children online – and when parents or authorities should be alerted. This week, Instagram announced it would start notifying parents if their teens were repeatedly searching for content related to suicide or self-harm. The feature will be available to parents who have opted into Instagram’s supervision settings.
AI COOKING
AI recipes are taking over the internet
Looks delicious, but it's AI-generated.Image generated by The Globe and Mail using Higgsfield, AI GENERATOR/The Globe and Mail
In just a few years, the internet has become overrun with AI food content – from recipes to photos to instructional videos – that was created without a single egg cracked, stove element turned on or dish dirtied. This has resulted in trust issues with users and threatened the livelihood of actual real-life food content creators.
This week, food reporter Dakshana Bascaramurty spoke with creators about all the ways AI has led to declining traffic to their own websites: Recipes are condensed and regurgitated in AI overviews in search results, AI-generated recipes proliferate on Facebook and Pinterest, and social-media algorithms prioritize the newest content, regardless of its origin. And then there’s the impact on the people who are seeking recipes online for a quick dinner or a special birthday cake, and have been duped by AI-generated recipes buoyed in search results with fake five-star reviews. Read the full story here.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Weight-loss drugs are shrinking the online body positivity movement
From left to right, singers Meghan Trainor and Lizzo, body positivity influencer Kelsey Ellis and actress Mindy Kaling.Photo illustration by The Globe and Mail. Photo sources: Jenna Hill/Supplied; Chris Pizzello/AP; Frazer Harrison/Getty Images; Amy Sussman/Getty Images
Body positivity, the broad social movement that promotes loving our bodies at any size, has its roots in the 1960s and 1970s, but exploded into the mainstream in the 2010s. That’s when plus-size models graced the covers of Sports Illustrated, Dove showcased “real” women in its beauty campaigns and Meghan Trainor released her pop anthem All About That Bass, in which she sings “It’s pretty clear I ain’t no size two. But I can shake it, shake it.”
In the past couple of years, however, there’s been a rupture in body positivity, as A-listers, athletes, artists and influencers are all getting skinnier. GLP-1s, more ubiquitously referred to by brand names Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, have been dubbed the wonder drugs – or culprits – behind the dramatic weight loss.
On social media, some plus-size creators who built their fanbase promoting the philosophy look dramatically different from when they first started their accounts. For followers who saw that representation as revelatory, the feeling is a mix of grief, betrayal and aspiration. Meanwhile, for the plus-size creators who haven’t lost weight, some say it can feel like they’re being left behind as the culture shifts once again. Read my full story here, which is part of The Globe’s Skinny Inc. series, exploring the medical, cultural and social effects of GLP-1s.
What else we’re reading this week:
Can social media age verification really protect kids? (Rest of World)
How A.I.-generated videos are distorting your child’s YouTube feed (The New York Times)
Adult Money
ART
SwitchBot AI Art Frame, $200
This digital art frame from SwitchBot displays original AI images generated using the company’s companion app that’s powered by Google’s Nano Banana. The display is e-ink, so it looks similar to actual printed paper. On SwitchBot’s website, prompt examples include “A white cat with blue eyes sits on the grass … with colours and brushstrokes reminiscent of Van Gogh’s style” and “A cat dressed as Santa Claus … in the style of a Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock print.”
It’s very likely AI slop has already infiltrated many parts of your online life, so you may be thinking, why would I want AI art in my physical life too? Yet most of us probably all know that person who is obsessed with AI-generated images, the person who floods the group chat with images of ducks on trampolines and red pandas frolicking on an autumn day, either blissfully unaware the photos aren’t real or simply tickled by the capabilities of AI. Maybe you are that person. Well, this frame is the perfect gift for that someone.
Culture radar
VIRAL ANIMALS
2026’s viral animal star is Punch the monkey
Punch with his comfort stuffie.Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters
Every year, like clockwork, a new cute animal goes viral online. In 2024, we had Moo Deng, the feisty, glossy pygmy hippopotamus from Thailand. And now a new pint-sized animal has stolen hearts: Punch the monkey, a baby macaque who was abandoned by his mother and has found comfort in a orangutan stuffie from Ikea.
The first time I encountered Punch was in a TikTok video that showed him getting dragged and tousled by a bigger macaque, then escaping to his stuffie and hugging it tightly. There were other videos too: Punch napping atop the stuffie, “picking lice” off its fur, as if it was a sibling, or clinging to a zookeeper’s leg. Like many viral animals, Punch’s fame has transcended social media. Hordes of people are visiting him at the Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan. Bakeries are making Punch cookies. The orangutan stuffie from Ikea has sold out in Japan, the United States and South Korea. Though it sells for $15 in Canada, I’ve seen it on Facebook Marketplace listed for $50.
And I have good news for those invested in Punch’s journey: The zoo recently reported that Punch has made friends with some of the older macaques.