My AI Offered to Build Something We Already Had
At the end of August, my AI offered to build me something we already had. It was one of six times that day it told me something didn't exist. The fix wasn't a smarter AI.
AI & Agentic
Patch's AI Reads the News. We Taught Ours to Read the Town.
Patch's AI newsletter reaches nearly a million subscribers, and its chief executive has said no person touches it before it sends. We pointed our AI at the town's own records instead, starting with an arrest log the town doesn't keep.
Mercury Local AI Governance: The Prompt Is the Policy
The rules that govern Mercury Local weren't designed. They were decided one failure at a time, the way the common law was. Eleven rules, eleven mistakes, one person who signs the corrections.
What Agentic Control Actually Means
Most people hear "AI-generated news" and picture a machine with no editor. James Watt tackled this problem in 1788 with two spinning iron balls. Control isn't supervision. It's a governor.
Multi-Agent Newsrooms: What the Architecture Looks Like
A transit tax explainer with thirty-four factual claims, checked before I read a word. What a newsroom of specialized AI agents actually looks like, and why it needs a devil's advocate.
Saving Local News: Build the System First
Most plans to save local news start by hiring the old newsroom back. Newspapers have been here before, and nobody saved them by going back to hot lead.
AI Costs: How a Newsroom Keeps Token Spending Down
AI isn't magic. It's metered, and agents run the meter around the clock. Tokens are payroll now, and here's how we keep ours from becoming the biggest line in the budget.