Red Sox Nation is disappointed once again. Major League Baseball’s 2025 trade deadline has passed, and the promising Sox came away with nothing more than a marginal starting pitcher and a redundant relief pitcher. But what we did get was perhaps one of the best examples of pretzel logic ever uttered in sports — which,…
Newsletter 104: Any writing tool that clarifies communication is a boon, AI included. Plus Amazon licenses the Times, Trump declares IP meaningless, three people to follow and three books to read. The future of human writing A furious debate is going on now about AI-generated text. Professional writers and other humans who write feel threatened…
AI is an average writer. It creates clear but boring prose. Average writers aren’t very good teachers or editors. So here’s how I see it. If you are an excellent writer, you can use AI to do better research, draft ideas, test out different ways of writing, and get feedback. You can then use your…
What happens when people demand something illegal? We find a way to make it legal and compensate those whose content was stolen. That’s what’s about to happen with AI. We’ve seen this over and over with digital innovations. Napster made electronic access to all music possible — but violated the rights of musicians and record…
The Red Sox signed Rafael Devers to a $313 million, 10-year contract in 2023. They just traded him to the San Francisco Giants for some losing pitchers and low-level prospects. Red Sox Nation generally loved Raffy and is devastated. What actually happened is obvious to those who’ve been following the team. At the start of…
If tell an AI tool like ChatGPT what you want, it’s going to try to get you what you asked for — even if what you asked for doesn’t exist. This is confirmation bias, and it’s a big problem for one of the best uses for LLMs: research. Tools like ChatGPT enormously speed up research…
According to the Boston Globe, the owners of the Connecticut Sun WNBA team are exploring options for selling the team. I’m not that surprised; Uncasville in southern Connecticut is an out-of-the-way place to put a team, and their facility is not quite up to the level of the growing professionalism and booming audiences of today’s…
How do people find answers to questions? For decades, the standard paradigm for decision-making revolved around web sites, links, search (and SEO), content marketing, and social sharing. Whether the question was “How can prepare for a job interview” or “What’s the right organizational strategy for a transnational company?” the answer started with a web search….
Today, a little sports math. The current reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics, owner of a dominant 61-21 record in the regular season, are in a second-round playoff series against the 51-31 New York Knicks. The Celtics were heavily favored to win this series, in part because they won four decisive games against the Knicks during…