Personal news: I’m joining The Atlantic as a contributing writer!

It drives me nuts how wide of an understanding gap there is between SF AI world and everywhere else — especially given the immense public stakes. There's so much AI hype, anxiety, and misinformation; so doing translation and synthesis feels more important than ever. (This role is in addition to my Substack, where I’ll keep writing at the same cadence. I love independence too much.)

I’m using this excuse to share some rambly media thoughts: namely that tech journalism can & must be great again.

The problem with “old media” is that it often refuses to take tech bros at their word, and the problem with “new media” is that it’s often just advertising, which is boring even for the subjects. There’s a doom loop where some reporters write poorly-informed stories, so insiders won’t talk to them, so sourcing is worse; not to mention that most journalists are not based in the communities they cover. This makes people bad-faith, but it also means a lot of AI reporting is 6-12 months behind. Yes, fantastic blogs/podcasts abound — these are the bulk of my info diet — but they are largely insiders talking to insiders, too niche to recommend to policymakers or smart non-AI friends. These fractures are a disaster for shared public knowledge, and make us less prepared to navigate AI well.

Magazine writing offers the ability to rise above of the hourly play-by-play (squinting at every new model release, every new jobs report) and to the bigger questions. I actually think the most impactful AI writing has *months*, not days of longevity! Rather than over-anchoring to any particular forecast, it offers generalized frames for operating under uncertainty.

A few types of pieces I’m especially keen to write:

1. AI culture: A few people’s idiosyncratic personal beliefs regularly change the world. It thus matters tremendously how AI builders view their work, politics, philosophy, and the future. I think most individuals in the AI industry are good and want their tech to do good. Journalists can portray AI workers’ earnest beliefs while being appropriately skeptical of how that can clash with or be shaped by industry incentives, and how it might diverge from the public. "Smart people confront hard moral/intellectual problem" is one of my favorite genres.

2. AI diffusion: AI discourse disproportionately focuses on its impact on software and writing because those are the jobs the messengers do (obviously I’m guilty of this). That makes me want to do more field reporting on AI in education, manufacturing, healthcare, etc: e.g. can I ride along with a team trying to integrate AI tutors into a school? Diffusion is rarely as smooth as economic models predict, and “how AI will go” depends largely on the speed, and where it hits first. Relatedly: AI in the non-western world.

3. AI superusers: Polls show people are highly anxious about AI’s speculative effects but sanguine about their personal use. I think more people should experiment with AI to feel both the pace of progress *and* its jagged edges. While AI can produce slop/surveillance/etc, it can also extend human ability & creativity. I want to paint portraits of people already “living in the future" so we can ask: is that a life we want? The tech is here, but we can choose how to relate to it.

If you have ideas/feedback/etc my DMs are open, and my Signal is jws.27. For me 1-1 conversations are *not* on the record unless we say so. (I always thought this was a weird norm, and in general am happy to answer people's questions about “how journalism works” from my POV because it can be quite opaque.)

Also I'm replacing my blurry phone selfie with a b&w portrait profile picture to signify reluctant induction into the label of "capital-j Journalist.” I spent most of last year pretending to be funemployed, but I suppose this is graduation. end of an era!