Surging tech stocks carried the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite to new records on Wednesday, a milestone in major indexes’ rebound from war-fueled losses.
The S&P 500 closed above 7000 for the first time and hit its first closing high since January. The Nasdaq composite surged 1.6%, notching its first record since October and its 11th consecutive gain. The Dow pared losses, trading 0.1% lower.
Investors took in more positive signs on the state of the U.S. economy. Bank of America this morning said consumer spending held up despite a turbulent start to the year and rising prices at the pump, adding to a chorus of big lenders seeing resilience in the American economy.
Consumer prices soared in March, pushed higher by skyrocketing gasoline prices. The numbers
Consumer prices were up 3.3% in March from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Friday, much hotter than February’s gain of 2.4%.
It was the highest reading in two years. But it was also in line with the expectations of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. Inflation Soared to 3.3% in March, Putting the Fed in a Tight Spot You may also like Your browser does not support HTML5 video.
Let’s be honest: I have trust issues. The idea of outsourcing my brain to a remote server I can’t see or control makes my inner skeptic twitch. Yet, here we are. Over the last few months, the internet has become a buffet of free Artificial Intelligence, and I’ve finally picked up a plate.
I haven’t fully surrendered to our robot overlords yet, but I’ve learned to love the leverage.
Why I’m Letting a Bot Hold the Pen
Writing is hard. Proofreading is harder. AI has become the ultimate “force multiplier” for my creative process. It allows me to generate content with significantly less manual labor. Here is the reality of our new partnership:
Grammar Without the Headache: It usually spits out text that is syntactically sound, saving me from the “did I use the right ‘their’?” death spiral.
The Ultimate Explainer: It leverages the entire internet to flesh out concepts that sit just outside my personal expertise.
Copyright Freedom: Since AI-generated content isn’t copyrightable, I can mold, mash, and publish it however I please.
Concept Expansion: I provide the spark—the thoughts and core ideas—and the AI handles the heavy lifting of elaboration.
The “Customer is Always Right” Problem
Working with AI is a bit like managing a very talented, very sycophantic intern. It has some quirks that drive me up the wall:
The “Pleasant” Filter: AI has an annoyingly “artificial” voice. It’s often overly sentimental and pathologically eager to please.
Blind Obedience: If I tell an AI the moon is made of spare ribs, it will likely agree and provide a recipe for BBQ sauce. It defers to the user even when the user is objectively wrong.
The Hallucination Factor: It makes mistakes. Bold, confident, flat-out lies.
How I Keep the Human in the Loop
I don’t let the bot go wild. My process is less “autopilot” and more “power steering.”
I treat AI outputs as a rough draft—a lump of clay that needs a human touch. I carefully monitor every sentence. I edit out the fluff, correct the “hallucinations,” and strip away that weirdly polished, robotic tone to make sure the final post actually sounds like me.
It’s a strange new world, but having a partner that never gets tired and knows almost everything? It’s kind of great—as long as I’m the one holding the leash.
Angie Howard lives in a walkable neighborhood in Portland, Ore., and works from home, so she has not had to shell out for higher gas prices since the war in the Middle East began. Still, Ms. Howard, who lives alone, said she had noticed costs jumping all around her anyway. “You go into the grocery store, you buy the things you normally would, and then all of a sudden it’s $20 or $30 more there, and you start to see additional fuel charges,” she said. “And at the end of the week, where you would normally have two nickels to rub together, now they’re not there.”
