Regretting your Choices

The choices we make are statements to the world about who we are. When all you could do was buy Lee’s or Levi’s, the jeans you bought were not a statement to the world about who you are because there wasn’t enough variety in the jeans you bought to capture the variety of human selves. When there are 2,000 kinds of jeans, or 20,000 kinds of jeans, well, now all of a sudden it is a statement to the world about who you are because there’s so much variety out there. This is true of jeans. It’s true of drinks. It’s true of music videos. It’s true of movies. That makes even trivial decisions seem important, and when that happens, people want the best. We’ve got a bunch of studies that show that large choice sets induce people to regard the choices they make as statements about the self, and that, in turn, induces them to raise their standards.If there are 200, and you buy a pair of jeans that don’t fit you as well as you hoped, now it’s hard to avoid blaming yourself. The only way to avoid regretting a decision is not making it, so I think a lot of the reason people don’t pull the trigger is that they’re so worried that when they do pull the trigger, they’ll regret a choice they made.

Barry Schwartz quoted in Vox

26 free (mostly one hour) Journalism courses

These short online courses will strengthen your journalism skills (and add a line to your resume). Most of these Poynter courses are one-hour in length or less.

Journalism Fundamentals: Craft & Values - A five-hour, self-directed course that covers basics in five areas: newsgathering, interviewing, ethics, law and diversity.

Telling Stories with Sound - Learn the fundamentals of audio reporting and editing in this self-directed course.  

How to Spot Misinformation Online - Learn simple digital literacy skills to outsmart algorithms, detect falsehoods and make decisions based on factual information.

Understanding Title IX - This course is designed to help journalists understand the applications of Title IX.

Clear, Strong Writing for Broadcast Journalism - One-hour video tutorial  

Powerful Writing: Leverage Your Video and Sound - In this one-hour video tutorial, early-career journalists will learn how to seamlessly combine audio, video and copy in captivating news packages.  

Writing for the Ear - In this five-part course, you’ll learn everything you need to write more effective audio narratives.  

Fact-Check It: Digital Tools to Verify Everything Online

News Sense: The Building Blocks of News - What makes an idea or event a news story?

Cleaning Your Copy: Grammar, Style and More - Finding and fixing the most common style, grammar and punctuation errors.

Avoiding Plagiarism and Fabrication

The Writer’s Workbench: 50 Tools You Can Use 

Ethics of Journalism Build or refine your process for making ethical decisions

Conducting Interviews that Matter   

Make Design More Inclusive: Defeat Unconscious Bias in Visuals

Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Publishers - Three important areas of media law that specifically relate to gathering information and publishing online: defamation, privacy and copyright.

Freedom of Information and Your Right to Know - How to use the Freedom of Information Act, Public Records Laws and Open Meetings Laws to uphold your right to know the government’s actions.

Journalism and Trauma - How traumatic stress affects victims and how to interview trauma victims with compassion and respect. 

How Any Journalist Can Earn Trust (International Edition)

What news audiences in various parts of the world don’t understand about how journalism works

Is This Legit? Digital Media Literacy 101

MediaWise’s Campus Correspondents explain the fact-checking tools and techniques that professionals use in their day-to-day work.

The On-Ramp to Media Literacy

How Any Journalist Can Earn Trust 

Dignity and Precision in Language 

How to Avoid Being Sued: Defamation Law in the 21st Century

Conducting Interviews That Matter

Power of Diverse Voices: Writing Workshop for Journalists of Color

15 Articles about AI’s impact on College Faculty & Administrators

College Writing Centers Worry AI Could Replace Them - EdSurge 

Publication Ethics in the Era of Artificial Intelligence – Journal of Korean Medical Science 

The AI Hiring Spree Colleges face stiff competition as they race to build faculties with expertise. – Chronicle of Higher Ed

Los Angeles Unified launches Ed, the nation’s first AI ‘personal assistant’ for students – Ed Source 

Why We Should Normalize Open Disclosure of AI Use - Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Abstracts Written by Medical Researchers vs Generated by Large Language Models – JAMA Network

AI Will Shake Up Higher Ed. Are Colleges Ready? - Chronicle of Higher Ed

Mary Meeker wants AI and higher education to be partners – Axios  

MIT Guide to Responsible use of AI in Higher Education – MIT Sloan Management Review

This University Had an AI Robot as Commencement Speaker. Yes, It Was Weird.  - Chronicle of Higher Ed

Thanks to AI, people may no longer feel the need to learn a second language. – The Atlantic

OpenAI announces first partnership with a university – CNBC

How AI Has Begun Changing University Roles, Responsibilities – Inside Higher Ed 

Drexel University AI policies – Drexel

A.I. Program Aims to Break Barriers for Female Students – New York Times 

How Higher Ed Can Adapt to the Challenges of AI - Chronicle of Higher Ed

when the props are pulled out from under us

It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.  -Madeleine L'Engle

For Today

Do what makes you happiest.

Look upon what gives you joy.

Speak to those who warm your heart.

Listen to that which lifts your spirit.

Surround yourself with sights and sounds and people who give you pleasure.

For all the happiness you give to others all year long, give yourself a perfect day.

And then tomorrow, repeat the process.

Mohan Singh

AI Definitions: Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement Learning - This type of AI learning sits somewhere in between supervised and unsupervised learning. Rather than  being given specific goals, the AI is deployed into an environment where it is allowed to train with minimal feedback. This trial-and-error approach involves adjusting weights until high reward outcomes are reached. Desirable behaviors are rewarded, and undesirable behaviors are punished. It is similar to a person learning how to work through levels of a video game, searching for an effective strategy. Reinforcement learning is indeed used in video game development and has been used to help robots adopt to new environments.   

 More AI definitions here.

Real Beginnings

When we are ready to make a new beginning, we will shortly find an opportunity. The same event could be a real new beginning in one situation and an interesting but unproductive by-way in another. The difference is whether the event is “keyed” or “coded” to that transition point, the way that electronic key cards are set to open a particular hotel room door. When the card code matches, the door opens and the whole thing happens as if it were scripted. When it doesn’t match, the event is just an event and you are still in the neutral zone. The neutral zone simply hasn’t finished with you yet.

What isn’t finished is the inner realignment and renewal of energy, both of which depend on your being immersed in the chaos of the neutral zone. It is as though the thing that you call “my life” had to return occasionally to a state of pure energy before it could take anew shape and gain new momentum.

William Bridges, Transitions

12 interesting Quotes about AI Tools and Products

Is AI the end of search? One CDO says no but look for search to be decentralized. “If I want to know the closest pizza shop, that’s what Google is for, but if I want to understand allergen info for the shop, I need to ask the shop itself” using the shop’s AI.  - VentureBeat

Toys “R” Us has released a video ad, one of the first from a major brand that was created almost entirely by generative artificial intelligence. Sora completed 80% to 85% of the work before the agency went in to make slight corrections to the imagery. - Wall Street Journal

A Japanese mega-conglomerate says it's using AI to build what one of its designers called a "mental shield" that manipulates angry customers' voices so that call center employees don't have to deal with drama. Softbank insists it won't change customers' words, but instead will do things like make a shrill, angry voice lower, to become less grating, or else, raise the pitch. - ArsTechnica

We put five of the leading bots through a series of blind tests to determine their usefulness. ChatGPT, didn’t lead the pack. Instead, lesser-known Perplexity was our champ. - Wall Street Journal

There were more images created through AI last year than there were created through lens-based technologies. - Hollywood Reporter

Humane releases widely anticipated Ai Pin—a wearable badge that doubles as an AI-powered smart device. The voice-based, always-connected Ai Pin is the first of what will almost certainly be a long line of products riding the generative AI boon. - Tech Crunch

An innovative voice-cloning technology is making it possible to hear Chief Justice Earl Warren “read” the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision on school desegregation as he did on May 17, 1954, along with oral arguments by lawyers including a future Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall. - Associated Press

A new study “recruited management consultants from Boston Consulting Group.” One of the tasks was to brainstorm about a new type of shoe, sketch a persuasive business plan for making it and write about it persuasively. Some researchers had believed only humans could perform such creative tasks.  They were wrong. The consultants who used ChatGPT produced work that independent evaluators rated about 40 percent better on average. In fact, people who simply cut and pasted ChatGPT’s output were rated more highly than colleagues who blended its work with their own thoughts. And the A.I.-assisted consultants were more than 20 percent faster. - The New York Times

AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd, by looking at them just once. - Eureka Alert

A pair of studies looked at how much a person's expectations about AI impacted their likelihood to trust it and take its advice. A strong placebo effect works to shape what people think of a particular AI tool. - Axios

AI can figure out where a photo was taken. This "may help people ID the locations of old snapshots or allow biologists to conduct rapid surveys for invasive plant species—but similar tech could be used for gov. surveillance, corp. tracking or even stalking.” - NPR

A start-up called Perplexity shows what’s possible for a search engine built from scratch with artificial intelligence. Perplexity doesn’t give you back a list of links. Instead, it scours the web for you and uses AI to write a summary of what it finds. One impressive Perplexity feature is ‘Copilot,’ which helps a user narrow down a query by asking clarifying questions. Perplexity also allows users to search within a specific set of sources, such as academic papers, YouTube videos or Reddit posts. - New York Times

Followers and Admirers

A follower is what he admires, or at least strives to be it. An admirer holds himself aloof, does not or will not discover that what he admires contains a demand upon him: the demand to be what he admires or at least to strive to become it.

Søren Kierkegaard

14 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism, Graphics, Audio, & More

Mon, Sept 16 - Captivating Canva Graphics: Unlock the Power of Design Principles

What: By understanding design best practices, you can create more effective Canva graphics—and stay on-brand. Learn the four key design principles (layout, color, typography, imagery) as well as sources for high-quality graphics. Basic Canva knowledge is helpful but not required.

Who: Lidia Varesco Racoma of Lidia Varesco Design

When: 11 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Nonprofit Learning Lab

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Tue, Sept 17 - Climate on the Ballot: The Stakes vs. The Horse Race

What: How can elections coverage prioritize informing voters of the climate stakes and hold leaders accountable for their climate positions?

Who: Neela Banerjee Chief Climate Editor for NPR; Chase Cain, National Climate Correspondent at NBC News; Lisa Friedman, Climate Change Reporter at The New York Times; and Adam Mahoney, Climate & Environment Reporter for Capital B News. Kyle Pope, Covering Climate Now's Executive Director for Strategic Initiatives, will moderate.

When: Panel - 12 pm, Eastern, Roundtable - 12:50 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Covering Climate Now

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Tue, Sept 17 - How Publishers are Incorporating Audio Content

What: Learn how incorporating audio content can unlock improved engagement and revenue opportunities for your publisher site.

Who: Travis Albritton, Head of Marketing, Amaze Media Labs

When: 2 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Local Media Association

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Wed, Sept 18 - Climate on the Ballot: The World's Climate Election

What: Hear lessons learned from reporters in three climate-critical countries — India, Mexico, and the UK — on how their press handled recent national elections. And explore how reporters around the world can cover the importance of the US election for humanity's climate outlook.

Who: Iván Carillo, a Freelance Journalist & Documentarian from Mexico; Natalie Hanman, Head of Environment for The Guardian in the UK; and Ritwika Mitra, a Freelance Journalist in India. Elena Gonzalez, Covering Climate Now's Local Television Engagement Manager, will moderate.

When: Global panel: 9 am, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Covering Climate Now

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Wed, Sept 18 - Navigating Artificial Intelligence: ChatGPT Deep Dive

What: Learn about advanced techniques like fine-tuning, prompt engineering, and using custom GPTs to create a personalized and powerful AI assistant. Additionally, you’ll gain insights into choosing the right model for your needs. OpenAI offers different versions of ChatGPT, including GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, each with varying capabilities and performance characteristics.

Who: Zachary Piotti, Coordinator & Digital Marketing Consultant at Widener Small Business Development Center.

When: 12 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Pennsylvania Business One-Stop Shop

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Wed, Sept 18 - Climate on the Ballot: The State & Local Climate Election

What: State and local officials have important roles to play in championing or stymying climate action, and billions of dollars are flowing into communities across the country, due to recent federal climate legislation. How do we best cover the climate story locally, and what can we learn from colleagues who are doing it well?

Who: Aman Azhar, Maryland Reporter at Inside Climate News; Brian New, Investigative Reporter for CBS News Texas; and Joan Meiners, Climate News & Storytelling Reporter at The Arizona Republic. An additional panelist is to be announced. Alex Harris, Climate Change Reporter at the Miami Herald, will moderate.

When: Panel - 12 pm, Eastern, Roundtable - 12:50 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Covering Climate Now

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Wed, Sept 18 - A branded content success story  

What: Find out how a regional city magazine fine tuned their branded content program with content that is generating a significant audience, designed packages that have increased value and revenue and implemented distribution strategies that are outperforming clients’ expectations. 

Who: Kelly Travis, Director of Marketing & Revenue Operations, SLM Media Group and David Arkin, CEO of David Arkin Consulting.

When: 3 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Local Media Association

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Wed, Sept 18 - Student Media Coverage of Elections: Tools and stories to serve your students' audience

What: How Cal State LA's three voter guides were produced by the university's community news class for the Eastside and South Los Angeles communities. If you are putting one together, learn best practices – and what mistakes to avoid.

Who: Julie Liss, Associate Professor, Television, Film and Media Studies, California State University-Los Angeles.

When: 4 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: College Media Association

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Wed, Sept 18 - Beyond College Journalism: Post-Grad Life Webinar

What: Perspectives on life after college journalism. How did student journalism prepare them for their internships and their first jobs? What worked and what didn't work when applying for jobs? How to deal with rejections during a job hunt? How do early-career journalists cope with the state of the industry? What do professionals wish journalism school had taught them? What are things they noticed about the news industry after transitioning from a student to a full-time employee?

Who: Jaden Edison, K-12 Education Reporter at The Texas Tribune; Sara Martin, Former Three-Year Editor-in-Chief at The Metropolitan; Caryl Anne Francia: Editorial Intern at Pensions & Investments; Hannah Mirsky (Moderator), News Producer at Spectrum News North Carolina.

When: 5 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Nutgraf, an award-nominated weekly newsletter about student journalism.

More Info

Thu, Sept 19 - How AI Is Transforming Creative Production and Immersive Storytelling

What: Discover practical applications of AI-driven creative production technologies. You’ll find out:  How immersive production is reshaping how brands connect with their audiences How cutting-edge AI tools are revolutionizing the creative process in games and marketing Examples of how this new technology can boost creativity and drive engagement.

Who: Drew Weigel, 3D & Immersive, Shutterstock Studios; Justin Webber, Exec. Prod. Shutterstock Studios.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Ad Week

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Thu, Sept 19 - Solopreneur workshop: A checklist for your transition

What: We’ll walk through a checklist that covers every step for freelancers of creating a business plan, to researching and setting rates, to addressing federal and state business regulations and requirements.

Who: Freelance writer Jen A. Miller, who runs the Notes from a Hired Pen newsletter; Diane Sears, author and Founder and President of DiVerse Media.

When: 1 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: $10 or free for ASBPE members

Sponsor: The American Society of Business Publication Editors

More Info

Thu, Sept 19 - Showing up: Public meetings in Utah

What: Learn how to find public meetings near you and learn how to best make your voice heard. Learn how much notice is meant to be given for the meetings, when they can be closed and what to do about it if you think open meeting laws are being broken.  

Who: First Amendment Attorney Ed Carter

When: 12 noon

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: The Utah Investigative Journalism Project

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Thu, Sept 19 - Demystifying AI: Building a Foundation for Responsible Use 

What: In this session, our panelists go beyond the fear of robots taking over the world and explore what AI is and the ways it can be used responsibly in the newsroom.   

Who: Bobby Allyn, technology correspondent, NPR; Nick Toso, CEO, Rolli; Moderator: Araceli Gómez-Aldana, WBEZ

When: 12:30, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Public Media Journalists Association

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Thu, Sept 19 - The Importance of High School Sports Journalism

What: In this roundtable discussion, we'll explore the importance of high school sports coverage, the challenges that arise and the future of high school sports journalism.  

Who: Newsday's Gregg Sarra; North Shore News Group's Anthony Lifrieri;The Express News Group's Cailin Riley; Jamie Stuart will moderate the discussion.

When: 7 pm, Eastern

Where: Zoom

Cost: Free

Sponsor: Press Club of Long Island

More Info

5 Tips for a Healthy Use of AI

The following strategies can help you maintain a healthy balance between your expertise and AI assistance:

1. Generate rough drafts from notes, rather than from a blank page: It’s fine to generate drafts with AI, but do your thinking first, put together some structured notes, and treat AI-generated content as a first draft that requires critical review and substantial editing. This approach can help mitigate the risk of anchoring bias.

2. Rotate between AI-assisted and non-assisted writing: To develop and maintain your own writing skills, interweave AI tools into your writing workflow, rather than relying on them for chunks of text. This will also help you maintain your own voice.

3. Customize AI prompts: Learn to craft specific prompts that guide the AI to produce more relevant and useful outputs for your particular needs.

4. Ethical considerations: Be transparent about AI use, especially in academic writing, and follow any guidelines or policies set by your institution or publication venues.

5. Fact-check and verify: Always verify facts, citations and specific claims made by AI. These tools have a tendency to generate “hallucinations,” plausible-sounding but inaccurate chunks of information.

From The Transmitter

Good advice from Agatha Christie

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.  -Agatha Christie, born Sept. 15, 1890

Emotional Blackmail

When someone attempts to make you take responsible for their feelings, they are committing what psychologists call emotional blackmail. A parent uses this when telling a child, "You've hurt me so much," or when a spouse says, "You hurt my feelings.

It is placing responsibility for their emotional outcome on you—pretending you have control over something that you do not. The parent may choose to become angry or sulk or become bitter or irritable toward the child. Someone may claim your action justifies their emotion. But that person is still doing the choosing of their own emotions.

When you see a family tiptoe around the house because "we don't want to upset mother (or father)," then you have a family who has decided to make everyone responsible for a single person's feelings—taking on a burden they were never meant to carry. Each family member is responsible for his or her actions. It’s the wrong goal to aim at preventing someone from ever being upset.

Elizabeth Kenny once said, “Anyone who angers you conquers you.” To allow someone else to decide how you feel is abdicating your responsibility to define yourself. Don't allow someone else to sell you on the idea that you are responsible for what they feel. Don't blackmail those around you by threatening to unleash an emotional outburst for something you yourself created.

Stephen Goforth

15 Articles about AI & the Creative Arts

Ted Chiang Is Wrong About AI Art It’s real. But it isn’t revolutionary. – The Atlantic

Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art – The New Yorker  

Create Better AI Images With These Expert Prompt Writing Tips – CNET  

So long, point-and-click: How generative AI will redefine the user interface - ZDnet 

Video game actors go on strike over AI protections – Semafor  

Colin Kaepernick lost control of his story. Now he wants to help creators own theirs – Tech Crunch

The music industry is coming for AI – NPR

The AI artist who used Bad Bunny’s voice — and shot to fame – Rest of World

How to Write a Book with AI in 2024 – GeekyGadgets

AI can’t make music — but that doesn’t mean it poses an empty threat to musicians - The Atlantic

OpenAI rolls out voice mode after delaying it for safety reasons – Washington Post  

India’s star audio content company is going all in on AI. Will listeners tune in? - Rest of World

New study on AI-assisted creativity reveals an interesting social dilemma – PsyPost 

FBI busts musician’s elaborate AI-powered $10M streaming-royalty heist – ArsTechnica  

AI Is Coming for Amateur Novelists. That’s Fine – The Atlantic

Four Rules of Life

Four rules of life: Show up, Pay attention, Tell the truth, Don't be attached to the results. -Angeles Arrien

Creating Candidates for Cults

Cults do not destroy families as much as stuck-togetherness attitudes in families create candidates for cults. When parents focus on societal influence it actually serves to increase their anxiety even though it helps them avoid personal responsibility. On the other hand, parents who accept the fact that their children are less likely to be influenced by other systems to the extent that they are comfortable in their own, while they might find the idea more painful at first, are given an a means of approaching the problem that is quite within their power, and it can, in turn, contribute to their own self-respect.

Edwin Friedman, Generation to Generation

25 Recent Articles about Journalism & AI

Here are the AI essentials that our experts are using, promoting and nervous about – Poynter

Historic Newspaper Uses Janky AI Newscasters Instead of Human Journalists - 404 Media

How I’m Trying to Use Generative AI as a Journalism Engineer — Ethically – The Markup

David Caswell: “All journalists should be trained to use generative AI” – Hello Future

AI companies have a news problem. Journalists have the skills they need to fix it. – Columbia Journalism Review

‘Being on camera is no longer sensible’: persecuted Venezuelan journalists turn to AI – The Guardian  

How The New York Times' Granular Gen AI Tool Drives Campaign Performance – Ad Week 

Meet NAT, the AI-generated presenter offering soft news to Mexican audiences – Reuters

After getting caught fabricating quotes using AI, Cody reporter resigns – Wyoming News 

India’s star audio content company is going all in on AI. Will listeners tune in? – Rest of World  

Two 80-something journalists tried ChatGPT. Then, they sued to protect the ‘written word’ – Associated Press

Reality Check Commentary: No News Is Bad News: Some AI Models Are Trained to Avoid News – New Guardian  

CNN slashes 100 jobs as it announces major AI-focused overhaul – Raw Story  

The Washington Post debuts AI chatbot – Axios  

The assignment: Build AI tools for journalists – and make ethics job one – Poynter  

Why video journalism is not ready to ditch its editors because of AI – Journalism.co

Google Search Ranks AI Spam Above Original Reporting in News Results – Wired   

Global audiences suspicious of AI-powered newsrooms, report finds - Reuters  

How AI helped a local newsroom in Argentina boost its reach, innovation and sustainability - International Journalist's Network  

Fact-checkers urge collaboration, caution in using artificial intelligence tools – Poynter

How Donors Can Support Responsible AI Use in Journalism – Journalism Funders Forum   

OK computer? Understanding public attitudes towards the uses of generative AI in news - Reuters 

Breaking down ESPN’s decision to use AI to write some game stories – Poynter

Our standards for using AI at The Dallas Morning News – Dallas News

California announces new deal with tech to fund journalism, AI research – Associated Press

New Washington Post AI tool sifts massive data sets - Axios

Cracks

Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. -Leonard Cohen

8 Great Quotes about AI & Humanity

Generative AI is currently very good at replicating parts of software programs that have been written many times before. But what if you want to create something new? This is where smart human coders will still be needed. - BusinessInsider

I think the rise of AI is going to result more in-person sales. If everyone can do it, people will not listen or read any emails or anything like that they just stop because it’s all generated. It means every email they got is amazing. They won’t believe any of it unless somebody looks them in the eye and says, ‘I’m a real person and here’s why this is true.’ - Ronan Perceval CEO of Phorest

Given that we don’t know what the lay of the land is going to be in five, ten years there are two crucial things for publishers to focus on: what do we do that’s irreplaceable? What do we do that a machine can’t do? - Wall Street Journal editor Emma Tucker 

Studies this year of ChatGPT in legal analysis and white-collar writing chores have found that the bot helps lower-performing people more than it does the most skilled. On a task that required reasoning based on evidence, however, ChatGPT was not helpful at all. Here, ChatGPT lulled employees into trusting it too much. Unaided humans had the correct answer 85 percent of the time. People who used ChatGPT without training scored just over 70 percent. Those who had been trained did even worse, getting the answer only 60 percent of the time. In interviews conducted after the experiment, “people told us they neglected to check because it’s so polished, it looks so right.’ - David Berreby writing in the New York Times

Like an episode out of Black Mirror, the machines have arrived to teach us how to be human even as they strip us of our humanity. Artificial intelligence could significantly diminish humanity, even if machines never ascend to superintelligence, by sapping the ability of human beings to do human things. “We’re seeing a general trend of selling AI as ‘empowering,’ a way to extend your ability to do something, whether that’s writing, making investments, or dating,” AI expert Leif Weatherby explained. “But what really happens is that we become so reliant on algorithmic decisions that we lose oversight over our own thought processes and even social relationships.” What makes many applications of artificial intelligence so disturbing is that they don’t expand our mind’s capacity to think, but outsource it. - Tyler Austin Harper writing in The Atlantic

As machines like A.I. eliminate routine tasks what gets left behind are the human skills we deem soft. - Jane Thier writing in Fortune

While AI is very powerful at human level or even superhuman level for many tasks, there are many other things where humans continue to have a big advantage, and that's going to continue to be true for quite some time. - Kate Whiting writing in WeForum

“Prompting AI systems is no different than being an effective communicator with other humans. The same principles apply in both cases. This makes me bullish on reading, writing, and speaking as the 3 underlying skills that really matter in 2024.”  - An Open AI employee Tweet

Forgot

Forget the times of your distress, but never forget what they taught you. -Herbert Gesser