What would happen if someone created an AI writer that could create at the rate of the entire staff of The New York Times? What if it were equivalent to that of 10 complete staff? Or 100? Naturally, we all fear the worst – a complete crumbling of public media. This belief is what led OpenAI to create a gradual, staged release of their GPT-2 text generator – their extremely effective “AI writer”.

In February 2019, they released Stage 1. Three months later it was Stage 2. And now Stage 3. I’m excited, worried, and curious all at the same time.