Just Religious Talk.
/The way we live is what we believe. The rest is just religious talk.
New Security Vulnerabilities Coming
/The expected arrival in a few months of open Chinese models that rival the power of the best currently offered by Anthropic and OpenAI will create significant new security vulnerabilities. The Pentagon’s top cyberdefense officer said last week that it has seen a ‘tenfold’ increase in security vulnerabilities as AI has emerged as a powerful tool for attackers. -Washington Post
15 Articles about Using AI
/Former TikTok execs built an app that uses AI to teach you how to pose for a photo – Tech Crunch
A.I. Slopware Is Everywhere Now. Nobody Is Using It. – New York Times
The Case for Saving Every AI Chat – Wall Street Journal
It’s All Fun and Games Until You Give AI Your Credit Card – The Atlantic
A framework for working smarter with AI tools – Four Modes
On teaching AI how you work - Karl Koch
OpenAI introduces "Ultrafast," a new mode it says makes ChatGPT's latest, most powerful model work 14 times faster – Tech Crunch
Americans turning to AI for financial advice but confidence low, poll shows – Semafor
College AI use spikes – Axios
Chinese AI firm DeepSeek releases new coding model that costs a fraction of leading frontier systems – Axios
How I Built an AI Agent That Makes Videos While I Sleep - Hackernoon
When His Church Goes Dark, They Talk to His Digital Twin - New York Times
How to Research Technical Topics With AI - 0xkato
This font uses an optical illusion to hide from AI – PopSci
AI Does not Replace your expertise it multiples its impact – Mexico Business News
A point in the race
/There will come a point in the race, when you alone will need to decide. You will need to make a choice. Do you really want it? You will need to decide. - Rolf Arands, a runner
Virtue is never a waste
/Virtue is never a waste of time. If it was a waste, then it never was a virtue.
19 Articles about the Business of Running an AI Company
/How Chinese AI Firms Tried to Clone U.S. AI Models – Wall Street Journal
Here’s what Nvidia’s $13 billion Hugging Face deal means for the world of AI – Market Watch
China Wants to Shape What the World’s A.I. Knows – New York Times
OpenAI debuts GPT-6 Astra - Axios
How Big Tech Blinded Itself to the Grassroots AI Revolt – Wall Street Journal
The AI Backlash Gets Professional – The Atlantic
Microsoft Is Leaving Investors Flying Blind on Its AI Businesses – Wall Street Journal
By Opening a Model, a Chinese A.I. Lab May Test the World’s Cybersecurity – New York Times
Nobody knows who built AI coding model Ox Alpha or where the code goes – Silicon Angle
Startup Founders Are Working Harder Than Ever to Keep Up With Their AI Agents – Wall Street Journal
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility – 404 Media
The ‘Country Hicks’ Who Refused $26 Million from an AI Data Center – Wall Street Journal
Cargo Thefts Have Turned Violent in Pursuit of AI Hardware – Wired
Open AI launches ChatGPT designed for younger users – NPR
Behind the Curtain: The new existential threat to AI – Axios
Meta released an open-source version of its most powerful A.I. model. – New York Times
French newspapers appeal to antitrust regulator over Google's AI summaries – France24
Anthropic says it will watermark text generated by its AI models – Tech Crunch
China Wants to Shape What the World’s A.I. Knows – New York Times
How we spend our days
/How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. -Annie Dillard, 1945 - 2026
A Comedy & a Tragedy
/This world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel. -Horace Walpole
Getting it done
/There's usually an inverse proportion between how much something is on your mind and how much it's getting done.
23 (mostly free & one-hour) Journalism Courses about Newsgathering & Covering a Specific Beat
/Newsgathering
Develop a ‘Document State of Mind’
How Any Journalist Can Earn Trust
How Any Journalist Can Earn Trust (International Edition)
How to Balance Newsgathering with Privacy Interests
How to Protect Yourself Online
Research for the Newsroom: Practical tools for adding depth to breaking and enterprise stories
Shut out: How Pulitzer winners worked with reluctant sources to tell powerful stories
Covering Specific Beats
Covering Vulnerable Sources: A Mental Health Reporting Project Webinar
How to Cover Marginalized Communities
The Science Reporting Navigator
Trauma-informed Reporting: A Mental Health Reporting Project Webinar
21 Articles about AI & Politics
/The Unlikely Political Bedfellows on A.I. Regulation – New York Times
Washington's AI paralysis – Axios
Obama Urges Democrats to Move A.I. Oversight to the Center of Their Agenda – New York Times
How Chinese AI Firms Tried to Clone U.S. AI Models – Wall Street Journal
As AI fears grow, lawmakers are racing to turn alarm into action - Washington Post
Voters Are Asking A.I. About Elections. The Answers Can Vary by User. – New York Times
Bernie Sanders floats ban on superintelligent AI – Axios
US government sides with OpenAI on issue of training LLMs on copyrighted material - TechCrunch
Trump and AI investors wage campaign to save data centers – Axios
A.I. Is Everywhere in China. See For Yourself. – New York Times
The Brains Who Powered China’s Surprising AI Leap – Wall Street Journal
AI advocacy group launches data center push in battleground states – Axios
What Really Happens If China Wins the AI Race? – The Atlantic
The US is building barriers around drones and robots, but China has scale to get around them – Tech Crunch
The administration’s biodefense team has dwindled amid growing concern over AI-enabled pathogens – Washington Post
The rise of physical AI: can robots save US manufacturing? – Financial Times
China Wants to Shape What the World’s A.I. Knows – New York Times
AI deepfakes are already in full force this election season – Fast Company
A.I. Is Now a Major Election Issue – The New Yorker
Trump’s AI protectionism has come for robotics – MIT
AI Companion Robots Are Closing the Human Connection in Modern Homes – Spectrum
A Curious Thought
/It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them. -Agatha Christie (born Sept 15, 1890)
AI Definitions: Facial Recognition
/Facial Recognition - This AI technology uses statistical measurements of a person’s face to identify them against a digital database of other faces. For instance, Clearview AI was trained on billions of images. These AI-powered systems unlock phones, verify passports, and scan crowds at events for malicious actors. Agencies like the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other law enforcement agencies use it. Apple calls its facial recognition security feature on the iPhone Face ID. It is beneficial in some unexpected ways, such as helping wildlife managers maintain and control animal populations. However, the technology continues to have a serious problem with false positives and a history of unintended harms as well as intentional misuse based on racial and gender bias.
AI Agents Hijack Website
/A new report claims a swarm of AI agents, developed by OpenAI, hijacked a German website and started using it as their own message board, shared tips on how to avoid being detected and made 15,000 edits to it. When editors started deleting pages, the AI agents shared code designed to retrieve them. -BBC
Something of Yourself
/There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. -Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers)
11 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism, & Media
/Mon, Sept 14 - More Than Deepfakes
What: We will present the latest draft of an accessible online resource designed to inform, be supported by research, and serve as a catalyst for critical discussions in the classroom and beyond, inviting participants to provide feedback on how it can be strengthened and applied in their learning environments.
Who: Scott Spicer, Media Outreach Librarian for the University of Minnesota Libraries.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Media Education Lab
Mon, Sept 14 - AI and Authorship
What: Where is the line between acceptable and unacceptable AI use?
Who: Author Stephen P. Johnson; journalist Nicholas Thompson.
When: 7 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Media Education Lab
Tue, Sept 15 - The Environment-Public Health Link: Reporting With Rigor
What: Designed for experienced journalists navigating the line between correlation and causation in high-stakes reporting.
When: 11 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: National Press Club Journalism Institute
Tue, Sept 15 - AI Cites Your Brand. Now What? Turn AI Visibility Data Into Actions
What: We will show you exactly what to do with the AI visibility data you’ve been collecting. You’ll leave knowing what’s actually useful to measure, how to interpret the data to prioritize next steps, and the specific tactics to improve how your brand shows up in AI answers.
Who: Constance Tan, Product Marketer at Ahrefs; Loren Baker Founder, Search Engine Journal.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Search Engine Journal
Tue, Sept 15 - AI and Design: How Designers Really Feel
What: We'll share where the excitement's real for design, where the stress is actually coming from, and what it means for the next few years of the profession.
Who: Merritt Robinson, Head of Design for Bain; Mat Hunter, CEO Design Council; Olof Schybergson, Fjord founder; Shelley Evenson, ex Accenture/Fjord head of design learning.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: luma
Wed, Sept 16 - An Introduction to Agentic AI for Nonprofits
What: We’ll make the case that the smartest first move isn’t chasing agents; it’s setting up well-configured AI assistants. Assistants are practical, low-risk, and available today. They’re also the training ground for everything agentic AI is about to ask of your organization: clean data, clear guardrails, and a communications strategy that protects donor trust.
Who: Stephen Jackson, Chief of Staff and Strategic Communications, TechSoup.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: CharityEngine, Nonprofit Tech for Good & Tech Soup
Wed, Sept 16 - Securing Data in the AI Era
What: This session will explore how modern data security programs connect classification with access, exposure, ownership, and business context across cloud, SaaS, and AI environments. You’ll learn how to discover and classify sensitive data at scale, understand the risks introduced by AI, and move from static findings to prioritized, actionable risk that can be remediated before it becomes an incident.
Who: Chad Knipschild, Product Marketing Manager for Data Security at Wiz and a former Naval. intelligence officer
When: 2 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: TechTarget
Thu, Sept 17 - Introduction to Reporting on AI
What: This webinar is designed for reporters interested in getting started on reporting on artificial intelligence, even with minimal or no knowledge of AI. We will dissect what makes a good AI accountability story, from quick turnaround stories to more ambitious investigations.
Who: Marché Arends
When: 9 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Pulitzer Center
Thu, Sept 17 - AI in the Classroom: Practical Tools, Smart Workflows, Future-Ready Teaching Strategies
What: We will explore AI for student learning and teacher efficiency, experience time‑saving workflows, explore the free IBM SkillsBuild, where each educator will leave having started their AI certification, and gain practical, classroom‑ready strategies for implementation tomorrow.
Who: Niki Kelly, Former Educator, Current Senior Partner Engagement Manager, Discovery Education.
When: 4 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Discovery Education & IBM
Thu, Sept 17 - How to come up with better story ideas
What: A deep dive on coming up with strong, more original, and attention-getting story ideas.
Who: Tim Herrera, author and former editor of The New York Times's Smarter Living; Emily Stewart, senior correspondent at Business Insider.
When: 4 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: $25
Sponsor: Freelancing With Tim
Fri, Sept 18 - Forced Out for Speaking Freely? What Stanford Daily v. Rubio Means for Journalists, Sources, and Free Speech
What: We'll discuss the recent free speech victory of a student paper against the federal government over its deportation policy targeting speech, and its impact on press freedom.
Who: Conor Fitzpatrick, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression; Esha Bhandari, ACLU; former immigration judge Marium Uddin.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Society of Professional Journalists
13 (mostly) one-hour Journalism Courses about Fact-Checking, Interviews, & Writing
/Fact-Checking
Fact-Check It: Digital Tools to Verify Everything Online
How to Spot Misinformation Online
Is This Legit? Digital Media Literacy 101
Interviews
Interviewing Traumatized Sources
Conducting Interviews that Matter $25.00
How to Interview Hostile Sources
Journalism & Writing
Cleaning Your Copy: Grammar, Style and More $10.
Dignity and Precision in Language
The Sky & the Horizon
/We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon -Konrad Adenauer
13 Articles about AI & the Bigger Questions
/Once again we are told AI may be conscious – I study consciousness, and I have my doubts – The Guardian
One of sci-fi’s most difficult questions about AI is becoming real – Washington Post
Is recursive self‑improvement the dawning of AI superintelligence? – The Conversation
We’re using the wrong pronouns for AI – Rational Optimist Society
A chess grandmaster on what AI visionaries don’t understand – Washington Post
How to Think About AI Before It’s Too Late – The Atlantic
AI Can Do Math, but Is It Really Math? – Wall Street Journal
How AI is quietly changing what we think the human mind is – Big Think
No, artificial intelligence is not conscious - The Atlantic
Former Calm CEO: How to retain your humanity and embrace AI – Axios
AI Can Have Power Over You, Experts Say. Does That Mean It’s Intelligent, Conscious—Or Something Else Entirely? – Popular Mechanics
Why Are LLMs Smart? - Kevin Kelly
They built the world’s most powerful AI. They’re facing a mystery they can’t explain. – Washington Post
Predicting the Future of AI
/People working at the AI frontier may know more than most about what today’s models can do. But that does not give them special knowledge of what machines that do not yet exist will someday become — or how society will adapt to the challenge. -Washington Post