A.I.
Under Review
Can A.I. Writing Be More Than a Gimmick?
Vauhini Vara consulted ChatGPT to help craft her new book, “Searches.” But the most moving sections are the ones she wrote herself.
By Anna Wiener
Open Questions
Will A.I. Save the News?
Artificial intelligence could hollow out the media business—but it also has the power to enhance journalism.
By Joshua Rothman
Infinite Scroll
The Limits of A.I.-Generated Miyazaki
The launch of GPT-4o inspired a rash of A.I.-generated Studio Ghibli-style images. They may bode worse for audiences than for artists.
By Kyle Chayka
Open Questions
Are We Taking A.I. Seriously Enough?
There’s no longer any scenario in which A.I. fades into irrelevance. We urgently need voices from outside the industry to help shape its future.
By Joshua Rothman
Infinite Scroll
What Michael Crichton Reveals About Big Tech and A.I.
The author of “Jurassic Park” understood that technologies often wriggle out of the grasp of their creators.
By Cal Newport
Annals of Inquiry
What Kind of Writer Is ChatGPT?
Chatbots have been criticized as perfect plagiarism tools. The truth is more surprising.
By Cal Newport
Infinite Scroll
Apple Is Bringing A.I. to Your Personal Life, Like It or Not
The iPhone maker’s introduction of Apple Intelligence marks a step into a new technological era—call it the domestication of generative A.I.
By Kyle Chayka
Annals of Artificial Intelligence
Can an A.I. Make Plans?
Today’s systems struggle to imagine the future—but that may soon change.
By Cal Newport
Annals of Artificial Intelligence
How to Picture A.I.
To understand its strengths and limitations, we may need to adopt a new perspective.
By Jaron Lanier
Elements
Thinking About A.I. with Stanisław Lem
The science-fiction writer didn’t live to see ChatGPT, but he foresaw so much of its promise and peril.
By Rivka Galchen
Annals of Music
Inside the Music Industry’s High-Stakes A.I. Experiments
Lucian Grainge, the chairman of UMG, has helped record labels rake in billions of dollars from streaming. Can he do the same with generative artificial intelligence?
By John Seabrook
2023 in Review
The Year A.I. Ate the Internet
Call 2023 the year many of us learned to communicate, create, cheat, and collaborate with robots.
By Sue Halpern
2023 in Review
The Terrible Twenties? The Assholocene? What to Call Our Chaotic Era
There is something paradoxical about pinning a name on an age characterized by extreme uncertainty. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying.
By Kyle Chayka
Infinite Scroll
Your A.I. Companion Will Support You No Matter What
New chatbots offer friendship, intimacy, and unconditional encouragement. Do they mitigate isolation or exacerbate it?
By Kyle Chayka
Profiles
Why the Godfather of A.I. Fears What He’s Built
Geoffrey Hinton has spent a lifetime teaching computers to learn. Now he worries that artificial brains are better than ours.
By Joshua Rothman
The Political Scene Podcast
The Creator of ChatGPT on the Rise of Artificial Intelligence
Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, discusses the surge of A.I. tools, such as ChatGPT, explaining their applications, limitations, and the need for government regulation.
Infinite Scroll
Bing A.I. and the Dawn of the Post-Search Internet
So much of the current Web was designed around aggregation. What value will legacy sites have when bots can do the aggregation for us?
By Kyle Chayka
Daily Cartoon
Daily Cartoon: Friday, March 17th
“Honey, why is the toaster trying to convince me that all this new A.I. stuff is nothing to worry about?”
By Avi Steinberg
Rabbit Holes
The Uncanny Failures of A.I.-Generated Hands
When it comes to one of humanity’s most important features, machines can grasp small patterns but not the unifying whole.
By Kyle Chayka
Daily Cartoon
Daily Cartoon: Friday, February 17th
It’s hard to compete with an amorous A.I.
By Ivan Ehlers