"We also see evidence that domain expertise, and not coding proficiency, amplifies effective use of the tool." Once again, LLMs can make experts more efficient/productive. They cannot turn amateurs into experts. www.anthropic.com/research/cla...
Who's Who of AI
Derek Willis
I teach data journalism at the University of Maryland, run OpenElections. Fan of WBB & test cricket. Posting obscure things about campaign finance, Congress & elections.
https://github.com/dwillis
https://thescoop.org
https://buttondown.com/dwillis
What they're sharing
Agentic coding and persistent returns to expertise anthropic.com
The Pentagon Is Running an AI Propaganda Mill Targeting Latin America theintercept.com
View on Bluesky →
The Agentic AI Investigative Journalism Challenge | gain-agent-challenge.northwestern.edu
AI is the Democratic Party's Next Villain - by Andy Hall freesystems.substack.com
DataTalk datatalk.biglocalnews.org
Can Journalism Schools Teach AI Without Losing the Craft? wypr.org
Associate Director for Data & AI Investigations and Partnerships umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
Articles & links
Derek Willis reposted
NEW: I've uncovered an AI slop mill quietly backed by U.S. Special Operations to push military propaganda across Latin American and the Caribbean disguised as a lifestyle content brand. theintercept.com/2026/06/02/l...
The folks at Northwestern are holding an Agentic AI Investigative Journalism Challenge using press releases from my Congress Press project. First place is $5,000. www.gain-agent-challenge.northwestern.edu
Really interesting use of my database of political fundraising emails by Andrew Hall: freesystems.substack.com/p/ai-is-the-...
Really excited that my friends at @biglocalnews.bsky.social have released DataTalk, a federal campaign finance agent that turns your questions about FEC data into data-backed answers. I helped a bit with this, and am very interested in feedback (as are the BLN folks). datatalk…
Had a great conversation with Jason Michael Perry of WYPR about teaching AI to journalism students without losing our way: www.wypr.org/podcast/thou...
The Howard Center for Investigative Journalism is looking for an associate director for data & AI investigations and partnerships. Come work with me at @merrillcollege.bsky.social! umd.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UMCP/j...
Their own posts
Recent commentary
Does Facebook have a problem with AI-generated slop pages? Here's a post about UF football coach Jon Sumrall "clashing" with Nigel Farage about immigration to help you decide!
As I sign up for more political fundraising emails, I'm gonna start surfacing the most AI-generated candidate website designs I'm finding. Here's one for Virginia McIntyre, a NY congressional hopeful:
Honestly, might be starting to prefer AI writing over this MadLib by, well, mad libs.
I don't often use papal encyclicals in teaching my class on artificial intelligence, but when I do, I use this pope's encyclicals.
Their network
In Derek Willis's orbit
Center = Derek Willis. Left = members they follow (green edges). Right = members who follow them (blue edges). Top = mutual follows (orange edges, slightly larger). Drag any node to reposition; click to open that profile.