The Washington Post is going to license Substack posts and use AI to polish content from "nonprofessional writers", reports the New York Times. Owner Jeff Bezos's plan to have his newspaper's opinion page support "personal liberties and free markets" has evolved, in predictable form, to something more commercially appealing: an inexpensively-generated deluge of slop. Best of all, they can replace both professional writers and editors.
Ember, the A.I. writing coach being developed by The Post, could automate several functions normally provided by human editors, the people said. Early mock-ups of the tool feature a "story strength" tracker that tells writers how their piece is shaping up, with a sidebar that lays out basic parts of story structure: "early thesis," "supporting points" and "memorable ending." A live A.I. assistant would provide developmental questions, with writing prompts inviting authors to add "solid supporting points," one of the people said.
Amusingly, one of the Substack newsletters The Washington Post wanted to bring on board was The Contrarian, recently founded by a former WaPo columnist who resigned and posted a scathing attack on the newspaper and its owner for bending the knee to Trump.
The fact that her site was ever even on the Post's list greatly amused Rubin; Mullin reported that she "burst out in laughter" when he mentioned it to her.
What that shows is that the people working on setting up this new "slopinion page" are unfamiliar with the WaPo opinion section as it is and its recent operations. Perhaps, then, some kind of DOGE-like group of technicians given free reign to delve in and burn it all down.
