Gannett’s USA Today runs a product review site called Reviewed. It makes money when you click to buy things. And, at least according to the union talent that writes a lot of the reviews, it recently started filling up with some pretty crappy, possibly AI-generated reviews that they didn’t write. That’s the story from Washington…
This article was originally published in Ragan’s PR Daily. Will AI tools like ChatGPT write your copy and take your job? Or will they just make you more productive? I recently tapped social media to connect with some of the world’s most effective business writers: authors of successful business books. They shared tips on how…
Where do you go to find the answer to a question? Who do you trust? Before the Web, you went to the network news or the local newspaper. If you needed a practical answer, you might take a book out of the library or ask somebody who you thought was likely to know the answer…
Jann Wenner made some arguably sexist and racist remarks in a New York Times interview. Then the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ejected him from its board of directors. The punishment doesn’t fit the crime. What Jann Wenner said Wenner has a new book called The Masters coming out, based on conversations with seven…
The FX series “Fosse/Verdon,” now streaming on Hulu, is a fascinating look into the lives of two amazing artists: the dancer, choreographer, director, and filmmaker Bob Fosse and his wife and collaborator, the dancer and actress Gwen Verdon. It’s an emotional and voyeuristic thrill-ride, not just because of the excellent acting and direction, but because…
A district court judge has confirmed a ruling by the US Copyright Office that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted. That’s yet another reason you should be using AI as a tool, not a text-generator. The district court ruling applies to art, but will likely extend to text as well As reported in The Verge: In…
The Associated Press issued a set of guidelines for journalists regarding the use of AI. They should be a model for all news organizations as well as anyone else who publishes nonfiction content. The danger here is that AI text generation tools like ChatGPT are, basically, bullshitters. They make up plausible text that has no…
In “The Hunt for Red October,” a character describes to the protagonist Jack Ryan how Russian subs are sending out many sonar pings but, at the speed they are going, can’t actually listen and use the sonar to locate anything. Too often, this is how “influencers” use social media: to shout, and not to listen….
I am so sick of news organizations making this error. Here’s some text that from an article about inflation that appeared in the New York Times Friday. The Personal Consumption Expenditures index climbed 3 percent in the year through June, data released Friday showed, in line with what economists had expected. That was a slowdown from 3.8…