The Atlantic parodies WSJ's AI op-ed defense with fake byline

The Atlantic ran a satirical op-ed this week titled "Why I Am Right About AI," bylined "Paul 'Claude' Gigot," under the subhead: "Human writers are expensive, and they eventually die. AI is cheaper, and will never join a union."

The target is the real Paul Gigot, editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, who spent the week defending billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller after Druckenmiller acknowledged that his Monday op-ed criticizing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's bond market intervention had been written using AI. An AI-detection tool called Pangram had flagged the essay, "Let the Bond Market Speak." Druckenmiller's response to a reporter: "Of course I used AI." He added, "I write everything using AI now for the same reason I use a calculator when I do math problems."

Gigot's statement said "AI is a fact of modern life. People will use it to assist in their work and their writing, including with research, checking grammar, editing and more." He followed up with a column deriding critics as "media pharisees."