| At this point, we’ve established that AI is transforming everything from J. Crew ads to toilet bowls. Now, says Howard Chua-Eoan, it’s being used to create even more drama around the US Open. “Like so many other pursuits, the sport is plagued by fan-fiction plotlines disguised as truth — complete with faked AI imagery — and propagated by algorithms to anyone who’s gazed at a tennis post for just a second,” he writes. “I saw a counterfeit news item, with false illustrations, that had [Alex] Eala turned away from a New York hotel because of her race. A quick search showed it was a falsehood, but there are many more in circulation involving so many other players. Slivers of truth are spun into unrecognizable soap opera.” My question: Why? Tennis is already extremely exciting and incredibly inspiring. As Howard says, “the real stories can be genuinely breathtaking.” Just look at this insane photo of Italy’s Jasmine Paolini. Not even AI could come up with that: Or how about this one of Daniil Medvedev’s broken racket? Howard says the Russian tennis player was “sent into a rage by a photographer crossing the court in the middle of a vital point.” He even asked the crowd to boo the umpire — theatrics that most certainly did not help him in his match against his French opponent, Benjamin Bonzi. Medvedev lost and now faces a $42,500 fine.  Photographer: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images Then there’s whatever’s going on here between American Taylor Townsend (with her back to the camera) and Latvian Jelena Ostapenko. According to Townsend, Ostapenko told her she had “no class” and “no education.”  Photographer: Clive Brunskill via Getty Images You don’t need AI to get people’s attention — the players are doing that all by themselves. Still, Howard says “the market for narrative has led to the rise of provocatively false social media posts disguised as tennis news. You’ll stumble onto them on Facebook and Threads. It’s made a sport already full of tension even more complicated. Minor dustups turn into blood feuds between top-ranked competitors.” In reality, such conflicts are settled on the court. As Townsend said in her post-game press conference, it’s better to let the racket talk. If you’re not the one playing, just sit back, relax and enjoy the actual game — or your honey deuce, at least. Can We Fix It? No We Can’t! | On a family trip last year, the top of our beach umbrella broke. It was a windy day, so no surprise there. But instead of trying to jerry-rig it, my mom — ever the crisis queen — whipped out her iPhone from her chair and dialed up the BeachBUB 800 number. There she was, sand in her teeth, asking a kind man (probably named Josh) in a cubicle somewhere to fix our umbrella. Although the customer service was excellent — we got the part in just a few days — it made for a good laugh and a sad realization: Nobody can fix anything anymore! Seriously: Is the touch screen on your smart refrigerator broken? It’s Samsung to the rescue. Couch arrived damaged? Wayfair will just ship you a new one. Fighter-jet landing gear causing you problems? You’ll have to get on the phone with five Lockheed Martin engineers to try and fix that issue, and even then, it might not get solved: Luckily, the pilot in the above incident survived, but the $200 million fighter jet did not. Although the Air Force’s Accident Investigation Board concluded that jet crashed because of crew decision-making, lack of oversight and failing to following procedures, who knows what might have happened if the pilot was more well-versed in the mechanics of the aircraft. Michael R. Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, says something ought to change — at least in the military. “If a war broke out tomorrow, American troops may struggle to repair and maintain the assets they need to defend themselves and defeat the enemy — not because they aren’t capable of making those repairs or hiring a third party who can, but because they are contractually forbidden from doing it,” he writes. It boils down to Department of Defense contracts that allow only authorized personnel to repair stuff. “Lacking access to the necessary data, tools, parts and training, troops in the field must either ship broken gear back home or fly out contractors tied to manufacturers — raising costs and imposing potentially dangerous delays.” Imagine if some of those Higgins boats that landed on Normandy Beach had faulty ramps. Were the Allied forces really going to delay D-Day while they waited for parts and maybe a team of mechanics from New Orleans to fix them? Of course not! “Believe it or not,” Mike says, “military members have actually been told that they can’t cobble parts together or do their own repairs. This flies in the face of one of our most storied strengths: American ingenuity.” Read the whole thing. | 
