This week: how Joanna Stern uses AI to handle the data work while keeping the thinking her own, why students outsourcing essays is trouble that shows up later, and how AI inference is forking into two different markets.
1. The AI trick I use constantly
Joanna Stern
Published: 05/15/2026
Joanna Stern explains how to use ChatGPT and Claude ‘Projects’ to create specialized AI workspaces for complex research and writing tasks
Stern uploads documents, transcripts, and research notes into Claude and ChatGPT ‘Projects,’ building what she calls BookBots. The AI retrieves and organizes the material. She does the reporting and writing.
That’s pretty much how I use it at work: editing, rephrasing, code questions, drafting tickets. It genuinely helps with speed and quality. But I keep design decisions mine. Hand off too much thinking and you stop building the judgment to do the job well.
Filed Under: #howTo #generativeAi #aiProductivity #knowledgeManagement #aiTools
2. Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
James D. Walsh
Published: 05/07/2025
Students use generative AI to automate essays and coding as academic integrity collapses in higher education
AI has made cheating trivially easy, and nobody’s figured out a reliable way to detect it. Students are turning twelve-hour projects into two-hour ones, and when that’s an option, assignments start looking like arbitrary hoops.
The problem isn’t the grade. It’s what gets skipped. An essay isn’t really about the output. It’s about organizing ideas, doing the research, building an argument. Students who skip that process now will feel the gap when they hit the workforce.
Filed Under: #nymag #generativeAi #education #learningLoss #academicIntegrity
3. The Inference Shift
Ben Thompson
Published: 05/11/2026
The Inference Shift
Thompson’s argument is simple: AI inference is splitting into two markets. Human-facing workloads (voice, live translation, real-time analysis) need low latency. Nobody wants to sit around waiting on a response.
Agentic inference is different. When no human is in the loop, speed stops mattering and cost takes over. The architectures built to win today’s inference market may not be the right bet for tomorrow’s.
Filed Under: #stratechery #generativeAi #nvidia #analysis #aiInfrastructure #agenticAi #inference
