Already Dead
/Some people have already died. They just haven’t bothered to set the funeral date. -John Maxwell
Default Mode
/Our brains never get into what scientists call “default mode.” That default mode allows your mind to wander, which is good for solving problems, exploring creativity and ultimately finding meaning. The reason people would rather pick up their phone than enter default mode is that it can be uncomfortable in the moment. -Arthur Brooks quoted in the Washington Post
People & Places
/A sign that someone is growing is that they expose themselves to people and places that are better than they are, different than they are, and more successful than they are. -John Maxwell
Why Not?
/Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?" -George Bernard Shaw, born July 26, 1856
Smart is
/Smart is not something that you just are, smart is something that you can get. -Jeff Howard
Some problems
/Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
24 Articles about AI & Writing
/The Most Famous AI Writing Tic Is Also the Most Mysterious – The Atlantic
AI Writing Strips Mystery and Complexity From Stories – Neuroscience News
‘Humanizer’ tool can erase signs of AI-written text — alarming scientists – Nature
Pastors Using AI to Help Write Sermons Grapple With Where to Draw the Line – Wall Street Journal
Pentagon boasts of using AI to write reports mandated by Congress – Ars Technica
Student Cheating Is Becoming Impossible to Detect in an A.I. Era – New York Times
A Meta-Epistemological Reason for Rejecting AI-Written Philosophy – Daily Nous
What AI’s Style Tells Us About It – The Atlantic
AI can write SEO content, but it can’t replace real experience – Search Engine Land
Could a Machine Write This Column? – The Free Press
What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity - New York Times
How AI is changing language – The Guardian
The Biggest Tell That Something Was Written by AI - The Atlantic
When AI Does the Writing, Who's the Author? – Psychology Today
Best practices for GEO: Strategies for AI search visibility – MuckRack
How To Make Sure Human Writing Stands Out In The AI Era - Forbes
How AI citations have changed in the last 6 months: New insights from ‘What is AI Reading?’ - MuckRack
Can A.I. Produce Writing That We Actually Want to Read? – New Yorker
We Asked the Future of Truth Author to Explain How He Used AI. It Didn’t Go Well – Wired
AI fiction is the new fast food – Washington Post
AI Changes Its Feedback on Students’ Writing When It Knows Their Race, Gender – EdWeek
Someone Used A.I. to Write an Unauthorized Biography of Me. I Don’t Recommend Reading It.- New York Times
Writing with and without AI - The Berkshire Edge
Study finds nearly half of all LinkedIn long posts are AI-generated, and that's only the start – Tech Radar
Shrink it
/Shrink the change. Break it down so it's not so scary.
Show up
/Show up in your life everyday.
15 Articles about AI & the Creative Arts
/What AI Will Do to Art – The Atlantic
1,273 designers tell all: Their rates, real pay, and how they really feel about AI – Fast Company
Taste cannot be delegated The death of design by committee in the age of AI – UX Design
A.I. Chatbot Helps a $100 Thrift Store Painting Sell for Over $250,000 – New York Times
The Four Design Jobs AI Created (So Far) – NN Group
The 80/20 problem: Will AI ever create great art? – Technical.ly
How AI Will Make Art Worse – TIME
A look inside Dataland in Los Angeles, dedicated entirely to A.I.-generated art - New York Times
I Work in Hollywood. Everyone Who Used to Make TV Is Now Secretly Training AI. – Substack
The state of generative AI in the creator economy – Digiday
Landmark New Report Warns That A Flawed AI Content Market is Accelerating ‘Content Cannibalization’ – Open Market Institute
Aesthetics of AI - AColorBright
Craft is Untouchable: AI doesn't threaten craft—the temptation to skip iteration does – A Color Bright
Take my job, AI! - Jeff Zych
AI Art Is Human Art An interview with a cognitive scientist about creativity and pleasure – Nautilus
18 Articles about the Business of Running an AI Company
/Google Is Building an A.I. Fence Around the Internet It Once Championed – New York Times
These AI-Native Companies Have Tiny Staffs and Fewer Bosses - Wall Street Journal
The hottest AI models in Silicon Valley face a powerful source of competition – Washington Post
A.I. Is Running on Borrowed Money - New York Times
Alibaba’s A.I. Is a Hit, but Hard to Turn Into a Moneymaker – New York Times
New York bans data center construction for a year, rattling AI industry – Arstechnica
China’s Moonshot AI Releases Model to Challenge Top U.S. Systems - Wall Street Journal
New York becomes first state to impose one-year pause on new AI datacenters – The Guardian
Start-ups are paying white-collar professionals to teach their jobs to artificial intelligence models – New York Times
Apple Sues OpenAI, Accusing It of Stealing Company Secrets – New York Times
What AI companies want for the millions they’re spending on elections – CNBC
Distillation Challenges AI Giants, Threatens Profit Margins - Business Insider
American A.I. Companies complain that competitors in China are unfairly copying their A.I. systems using a technique that has been around for years. – New York Times
Databricks Releases General AI Agents for Businesses – Wall Street Journal
Silicon Valley backed Trump to kill AI regulation, now the industry is begging for rules – The Next Web
The semiconductor industry that has become a major choke point in the global contest for artificial intelligence leadership – New York Times
Chinese Supercomputer Overtakes U.S. as World’s Fastest – Wall Street Journal
The Constant is Change
/We cling to our identity, our relationships, and our ideologies as if they are fixed forever. We make ridged life plans and feel guilty when they break. We hold grudges against people who no longer exist, and we feel betrayed when someone else changes. But if everything is flex, then change isn’t a failure, it’s natural. Change and transformation are normal. You, me, and everyone will move on. We will all become someone new. So, stop trying to freeze the river. Stop demanding that things stay the same because everything and everyone will change. -Jonny Thomson
What is distinctively human about writing
/What is distinctively human about writing: Moments in the narrative that are unexpected, seem imperfect, incomplete or controversial. From those moments, stories truly unfold. The flaw, the uncomfortable, the anomaly are markers of originality, authenticity and sources of growth. -Andrea Larson, Duke University
AI Definitions: The Illusion of Competence
/The Illusion of Competence – This cognitive bias takes place when individuals mistakenly believe they have mastered a subject or skill when they have not. Studies have shown that AI users can develop this overconfidence when they outsource their thinking to generative AI, avoiding the deep mental engagement and friction required for learning and aptitude. Delegating the heavy lifting to AI is sometimes referred to as “cognitive offloading.”
21 Recent Articles about AI & Academic Scholarship
/AI reviewers make it easier to get research published. US study calls it paper-laundering – The Print
Doctored data sets could trick AI agents - Nature
Award-winning Korea studies scholar accused of using AI-fabricated citations – NK News
AI tools meant to vet science are surprisingly easy to fool – Science News
‘Humanizer’ tool can erase signs of AI-written text — alarming scientists – Nature
AI-assisted reviews will result in ordinary, uncontroversial research – The Times Higher Ed
AI Slop Is a Tenure Problem, Not Just a Tech Problem – Inside Higher Ed
In the AI era, the human struggle can no longer be the point of research - The Times Higher Ed
Artificial intelligence in scientific review and writing: What should we be doing? – Oxford Acamdemic
Research integrity in the age of AI (podcast) - The Lancet
University launches investigation into its faculty member's paper allegedly containing AI watermarks in graphics – Global Times
Scientists decry conference’s use of hidden prompts to snare AI peer reviews – The Transmitter
New AI Agents Pose ‘Existential Threat’ to How Grants Are Awarded – Inside Higher Ed
Publication fraud in the era of generative artificial intelligence – British Pharmacological Society
Anyone can fake a scientific image with AI, tricking even academic journals – and undermining trust in science – The Conversation
AI promised to democratise academic publishing – the evidence says otherwise – The London School of Economics
Journal investigating paper on cognitive impact of generative AI – Retraction Watch
Did AI write this article? Perish the thought. But we tracked how artificial intelligence is changing five creative fields – The Economist
Scientists want you to read their research papers—so they’re using gen AI to turn them into TikTok videos – Fast Company
A little spark of madness
/You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it. -Robin Williams (born July 21, 1951)
22 Articles about Job Negotiation
/5 Questions Veterans Should Ask When Negotiating a Starting Salary - Military.com
7 Ways To Win At Salary Negotiation In A Tough Job Market -Forbes
8 Reasons you should turn down that job offer - Salary.com
Ask For Too Much And You Might Lose The Offer: New Rules Of Salary Negotiation - Forbes
Don’t Accept A Job Offer Without Doing These 3 Things - Forbes
Don’t Waste Your Money: How to negotiate your salary/raise - ABC 27
The era of salary negotiation is ending - The Hill
Gen Z is using ChatGPT to practice salary negotiations and tough conversations before they happen – Fortune
How AI can help you negotiate better deals on rent, salary and more - FOX-10 News
How Salary Negotiations Uncover A Company’s True Priorities - Forbes
How to negotiate your salary to help with inflation - Fast Company
How to negotiate your salary: A 5 W's approach - ZDNet
How to Negotiate Your Salary When You Don't Have Any Work Experience - LifeHacker
How to use a new job offer to re-negotiate your current salary - Glassdoor Blog
I'm a salary negotiator. Here are 6 things I'd never do - Business Insider ($)
The million-dollar mistake: Women fall short when negotiating salaries - bizwomen
Not So Fast! Ask These 5 Questions Before Signing Any Job Offer In 2026 - Metro News
This simple phrase can get you up to 20% more in compensation, according to a negotiation coach - Business Insider
Tired of unpaid internships? Here's how to negotiate pay - MSNBC
Why employees don’t negotiate compensation, according to researchers - HR Dive
Why I Teach Negotiation Skills to Undergrads - Inside Higher Ed
AI Definitions: AI Design
/AI Design – While this term typically means using AI as a tool in a design workflow (prompt literacy and workflow integration), it can also reference designing AI products, designing AI agents (how they interact with products, content, and data), or design as it relates to language models (model evaluation and collaboration with ML engineers).
Differing Approaches to AI by the US & China
/The United States is behaving as though frontier A.I. models could be the equivalent of nuclear weapons, offering an immensely destructive form of power that requires a careful and jealous watch. Meanwhile, China treats the models that its companies produce as the equivalent of nuclear energy, a lower-risk technology to be shared and commercialized to win friends and influence the world and undermine the advantages of the American A.I. giants. - Ross Douthat writing in The New York Times
White Space
/Schedule “white space” in your day, and keep it off-limits from the tyrannical urgencies of your work. -Arthur Brooks