Times Quest

  Hi everybody, A few weeks ago, we shared with you our latest thinking on A.I. generated writing on Medium,   how we’re working to keep it out of your feed   as well as   out of the Partner Program . It’s clear that A.I. is a permanent part of our digital lives, for good and ill (Meta rolled out a new chatbot to Instagram and WhatsApp this week). When we hear from readers and writers on Medium about A.I., it’s a mix of curiosity and   apprehension . Luckily, there are stories on Medium to speak to both sides. This extremely long read from Meta data scientist   Colin Fraser   goes deep on why A.I. hallucinates , and gives a great grounding in machine learning along the way. And this   in-depth look at what Apple might be up to with the future of Siri   — it involves lighter LLMs and interface recognition — hints at some exciting new possible ways A.I. will make doing certain tasks easier. On the flip side, the relentless pace of A.I. development makes having the bigger — and much neede

  We’ve all got one Big Ol’ Bad Thing waiting for us all at the very end, and no matter how strong your faith in the afterlife or rebirth, dying is pretty, pretty Bad. But before we even get there, we’re all going to have a heartbreak, a setback, a layoff, a diagnosis, an accident or other event that will qualify as a Bad Thing. So as hard as it is to accept, you’ve just simply got to come to terms with The Bad Thing. One will enter your life, eventually, no matter how canny you are, how savvy your choices, lucky your genes, etc. The Bad Thing is a given; it’s table stakes for being alive. The question, the real question, is what you do when The Bad Thing happens. A funny thing about when The Bad Thing happens — and I’m drawing here from both personal experience and keen powers of human observation — is that you really don’t know how you’re going to react. You may think you do. As you are reading these words, a part of your brain is saying “Of course I do! I’m a very [strong/calm/anxio

  . Last month, we asked the Medium community   what you think about AI-generated writing , and many of you responded. We received hundreds of comments and emails expressing a wide range of perspectives, from excitement over the potential uses of these new tools to deep concern about the impact they’ll have on a writing platform like Medium, which prizes human knowledge and experience. First, thank you for that thoughtful feedback. It’s clear this is an issue on a lot of people’s minds, and it’s an important one. This is a moment of huge transformation in the digital world, and the potential implications are both wide-reaching and still not well-defined. But they’re also not abstract: AI-generated content is here now, and it’s important to start wrestling with that impact now too, even as the landscape is still taking shape. There were many responses that referenced the need for transparency and disclosure. As   Amanda Laughtland   wrote in response   to our post, “If people are going