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Most days, an email lands in my inbox with the promise to amplify my growthmy newsletter subscribers, the reach of my podcasts, the number of client leads, etc. I’ve gotten used to random people pitching me on their services, and some of the messages expertly prey on my insecurities as a business owner (“you’re leaving so much on the table,” et al.). I never answer any of them, but I sometimes wonder which ones might actually be legit. A few months back, I opened up the Assistant sidebar in my AI-powered browser when I was browsing one of these emails and asked if it looked suspicious (I think “this look sus?” was the actual prompt). It replied that yes, the message, which pitched finding funding for The Media Copilot, was missing key information that an established organization would include, plus it was sent by someone with an email address from a nonexistent domain and no LinkedIn profile. I thought about my experience as I read in Time about how a team at MIT maintains an online portal that chronicles how harmful AI incidents have risen over the past few years. The TL;DR is that the use of AI to cause harm, whether deliberately or accidentally, has increased significantly over the past few years. The incidents include everything from simple mistakes to deliberate violations, and the broad categories that have increased the most have to do with misinformation and malicious actors. That sadly makes sense: Those looking to mislead, misinform, or outright scam people have never had better tools for doing so. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/mediacopilot-logo-ss.png","headline":"Media CoPilot","description":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for Media CoPilot. To learn more visit mediacopilot.substack.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} One of the roles of the news media is to provide a check on misinformation, and most high-profile incidents connected with AIlike when those Biden robocalls were making the roundsare debunked pretty quickly. But incidents that rise to that level are the exception, not the rule. Deepfakes may never fool enough people to swing an election, but the numbers suggest the number of lower-profile incidents are accumulating rapidly. At the same time, the number of journalism jobs is shrinking, and the reporters who are left have only so much bandwidth. Skepticism isn’t strategy As misinformation from AI scales up, it’s creating a world where everyone is increasingly skeptical of what they read, see, and hear. Last year, a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that exposure to AI-driven misinformation led to less trust in media in general. But skepticism alone isn’t productive. Where journalists can help the most isn’t in trying to debunk every deepfake or scam (clearly a losing battle), but in educating their audience on how to properly channel that skepticism. As with my email assistant, the tools of verificationwhich can very quickly check sources, analyze claims, and discover supporting evidenceare now conveniently available to everyone. That’s not to say everyone should immediately trust what an AI chatbot says about a particular story. But AI is a tool, and when used as a journalistic lens, it can be a powerful one. The key is treating the AI as an assistant to skepticism, not an authority. To return to the email example, my back-and-forth with the browser found in seconds what would have taken me minutes, looking up subjects, flagging inconsistencies, and suggesting new questions to follow up on. This all aligns with the principles of good journalism, and by passing some practical guidance on that, readers will be empowered not just to spot bad info, but potentially not immediately dismiss the good info that’s out there. How to avoid the cynical trap So what does a good “AI verification layer” look like? It starts with understanding that skepticism is a starting point, not the goal. Using it effectively means leveraging AI to both interrogate the information and avoid reinforcing your own suspicions in an unproductive way. Here are three habits, based on journalistic principles, that can be applied to any AI tool. Ask the same question twice: Many incidents where AI has caused harm started innocently enough, but eventually the user was led down some kind of rabbit hole, sometimes ending tragically. A helpful habit that might avoid this in some cases is to ask the same question a second time, just rephrased or with different framing. Check how the answers compare, following up on any significant inconsistencies. Force specificity: All good interviewers apply this one in targeted fashion. When a person makes a broad claim or declaration, ask AI to make it more specific. What supports that claim? Who was involved, what were the facts of the underlying evidence, when did it happen? Any vague answers should be treated as a red flag. Spot-check sources: If any claim is based on a link on the internet, it should not take long to verify it. When you can’t verify something in a minute or two, that should make you think twice, though keep in mind there could be reasons some true claims are difficult to verify (anonymous sources, for example). The world is increasingly fuzzy. Between AI hallucinations, deliberate disinformation, and the prevalence of meme culture, it’s understandable that everyone’s adopted a lot more skepticism of what they see. Without principles and habits to guide you to good information, though, that skepticism will too often slide into cynicim. Journalists might not be able to verify all the things we want them to, but their principles can help a new generation of news consumers tell the good from the badat scale. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/mediacopilot-logo-ss.png","headline":"Media CoPilot","description":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for Media CoPilot. To learn more visit mediacopilot.substack.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
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E-Commerce
Sometimes it’s a fall that brings a broken hip and a loss of mobility. Or memory problems that bubble into danger. Or the death of the partner who was relied upon for care.The need to move to a nursing home, assisted living facility or another type of care setting often comes suddenly, setting off an abrupt, daunting search. It’s likely something no one ever wanted, but knowing what to look for and what to ask can make a big difference.What to do when looking for a long-term care facility: Start with government ratings Regulation of assisted living facilities varies greatly from state to state, meaning there’s no centralized standards or source for information. If you’re looking for a nursing home, though, they are monitored by the federal government.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services maintains records on nursing homes, including data on who owns the facility, how robust its staffing is and what types of violations it might have been fined for. It assigns homes a star rating, from one to five.Sam Brooks, director of public policy for the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, says while the star rating “can be notoriously unreliable,” due to its reliance on self-reported data, it can still provide some clues about a home.“One or two stars, expect it to be bad,” Brooks says.Ratings can be a resource to rule out the worst options, but not necessarily to find the best. Still, Brooks suggests taking a closer look at four- and five-star facilities and to consider a home’s ownership, too. Nonprofit homes are often better staffed.You could scour inspection reports and online reviews for clues, too, but eventually you’ll need to make a list of potential candidates and start making visits.“The data,” Brooks says, “only goes so far.” Look past the lobby When visiting a home on your list, be careful not to be too swayed by decorative touches that might be designed to lure you in, like a lobby’s furniture, dangling chandeliers or vases of flowers.“When I tour a building, I listen first. Is it loud? Are call bells ringing nonstop?” says Mark Sanchez, CEO of United Hebrew, a nursing home in New Rochelle, New York.After that, Sanchez says, switch your senses. Do you detect an odor? Do you see residents clustered around the nurses’ station, perhaps clamoring for help? Are staffers speaking respectfully to residents? Are they making eye contact? Are they rushed?“Culture shows up in small moments,” Sanchez says, “and it matters.”Seeking input from families of current residents can be insightful. Another resource may be your local long-term care ombudsman. Ombudsmen, funded by the federal Older Americans Act and present in every state, investigate long-term care residents’ complaints.With all the available information on each home, it can be easy to feel like you’re drowning in data. So pay attention to how a place feels, too, and pair that with concrete facts.When Jennifer Fink was making the “stressful, grief-inducing, hard and scary” decision on what memory care community was right for her mother, she didn’t consult state databases or Google ratings. She went with her gut reaction and luckily, it was right.“Trust your gut. Keep top of mind that the salesperson wants your loved one’s money,” says Fink, of Auburn, California. “If it’s giving you the ‘ick,’ then move on.” Staffing matters most More than any other single thing, experts on long-term care stress that a facility’s staffing is most important. That means both the quality of the care you witness workers giving residents during your visit and the average staffing levels shown in the reported data.A home providing an average of three hours of nursing care to each resident each day may not look all that different on paper from one providing three-and-a-half hours. But those minutes matter dearly, meaning the difference between a person getting a shower, having help at mealtime, or being discovered if they’ve fallen.During a visit, pay attention to how quickly call bells are answered and whether it seems like residents are engaged in activities. Ask staff how long they’ve worked there. A home that holds on to its workers for years may offer your loved one more continuity.Evan Farr, an elder law attorney in Lorton, Virginia, who wrote “The Nursing Home Survival Guide,” says visiting a facility at night or on the weekend can be particularly revealing.“These are the times when staffing is reduced and the true operation of the facility becomes apparent,” Farr says. “It is entirely possible to have a five-star rated facility that is woefully under-staffed from 5 p.m. Friday until 8 a.m. Monday morning.” Keep a long-range view When faced with an urgent decision, it can be difficult to focus on anything beyond the factors in front of you. But it’s important to choose a home with a long-range view.At the start, many long-term care residents are able to pay for the cost of their bill. But what happens if their money runs out? If it’s a nursing home that accepts Medicaid, how many beds are allocated to such residents? Would your loved one get that slot? If it’s an assisted living facility, do they even accept people on Medicaid?Assisted living facilities often have complicated billing structures that require a bevy of questions to understand. Ask how costs may change as a person’s needs increase. Some places tack on separate charges for tasks like helping a person to the bathroom.“Four-thousand dollars a month can become $8,000 overnight,” says Geoff Hoatson, founder of the elder law practice Family First Firm in Winter Park, Florida.Another fact of long-term care that few understand is how often facilities seek to remove residents seen as undesirable, often due to a change in their financial circumstances or in their health. Dementia patients in particular with challenging care needs and symptoms that can sometimes bring aggression are targeted with orders to leave.“Ask specifically what conditions would require transfer,” Hoatson says. Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky Matt Sedensky, AP National Writer
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E-Commerce
President Donald Trump wants to keep home prices high, bypassing calls to ramp up construction so people can afford what has been a ticket to the middle class.Trump has instead argued for protecting existing owners who have watched the values of their homes climb. It’s a position that flies in the face of what many economists, the real estate industry, local officials and apartment dwellers say is needed to fix a big chunk of America’s affordability problem.“I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes, and they can be assured that’s what’s going to happen,” Trump told his Cabinet on Jan. 29.That approach could bolster the Republican president’s standing with older voters, a group that over time has been more likely to vote in midterm elections. Those races in November will determine whether Trump’s party can retain control of the House and Senate.“You have a lot of people that have become wealthy in the last year because their house value has gone up,” Trump said. “And you know, when you get the housing when you make it too easy and too cheap to buy houses those values come down.”But by catering to older baby boomers on housing, Trump risks alienating the younger voters who expanded his coalition in 2024 and helped him win a second term, and he could wade into a “generational war” in the midterms, said Brent Buchanan, whose polling firm Cygnal advises Republicans.“The under-40 group is the most important right now they are the ones who put Trump in the White House,” Buchanan said. “Their desire to show up in an election or not is going to make the difference in this election. If they feel that Donald Trump is taking care of the boomers at their expense, that is going to hurt Republicans.” The logic in appealing to older voters In the 2024 presidential election, 81% of Trump’s voters were homeowners, according to AP VoteCast data. This means many of his supporters already have mortgages with low rates or own their homes outright, possibly blunting the importance of housing as an issue.Older voters tend to show up to vote more than do younger people, said Oscar Pocasangre, a senior data analyst at liberal think tank New America who has studied the age divide in U.S. politics. “However, appealing to older voters may prove to be a misguided policy if what’s needed to win is to expand the voting base,” Pocasangre said.Before the 2026 elections, voters have consistently rated affordability as a top concern, and that is especially true for younger voters with regard to housing.Booker Lightman, 30, a software engineer in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, who identifies politically as a libertarian Republican, said the shortage of housing has been a leading problem in his state.Lightman just closed on a home last month, and while he and his wife, Alice, were able to manage the cost, he said that the lack of construction is pushing people out of Colorado. “There’s just not enough housing supply,” he said.Shay Hata, a real estate agent in the Chicago and Denver areas, said she handles about 100 to 150 transactions a year. But she sees the potential for a lot more. “We have a lack of inventory to the point where most properties, particularly in the suburbs, are getting between five and 20 offers,” she said, describing what she sees in the Chicago area.New construction could help more people afford homes because in some cases, buyers qualify for discounted mortgage rates from the builders’ preferred lenders, Hata said. She called the current situation “very discouraging for buyers because they’re getting priced out of the market.”But pending construction has fallen under Trump. Permits to build single-family homes have plunged 9.4% over the past 12 months in October, the most recent month available, to an annual rate of 876,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Trump’s other ideas to help people buy houses Trump has not always been against increasing housing supply.During the 2024 campaign, Trump’s team said he would create tax breaks for homebuyers, trim regulations on construction, open up federal land for housing developments and make monthly payments more manageable by cutting mortgage rates. Advisers also claimed that housing stock would open up because of Trump’s push for mass deportations of people who were in the United States illegally.As recently as October, Trump urged builders to ramp up construction. “They’re sitting on 2 Million empty lots, A RECORD. I’m asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get Big Homebuilders going and, by so doing, help restore the American Dream!” Trump posted on social media, referring to the government-backed lenders.But more recently, he has been unequivocal on not wanting to pursue policies that would boost supply and lower prices.In office, Trump has so far focused his housing policy on lobbying the Federal Reserve to cut its benchmark interest rates. He believes that would make mortgages more affordable, although critics say it could spur higher inflation. Trump announced that the two mortgage companies, which are under government conservatorship, would buy at least $200 billion in home loan securities in a bid to reduce rates.Trump also wants Congress to ban large financial institutions from buying homes. But he has rejected suggestions for expanding rules to let buyers use 401(k) retirement accounts for down payments, telling reporters that he did not want people to take their money out of the stock market because it was doing so well.There are signs that lawmakers in both parties see the benefits of taking steps to add houses before this year’s elections. There are efforts in the Senate and House to jump-start construction through the use of incentives to change zoning restrictions, among other policies.One of the underlying challenges on affordability is that home prices have been generally rising faster than incomes for several years.This makes it harder to save for down payments or upgrade to a nicer home. It also means that the places where people live increasingly double as their key financial asset, one that leaves many families looking moneyed on paper even if they are struggling with monthly bills.There is another risk for Trump. If the economy grows this year, as he has promised, that could push up demand for houses as well as their prices making the affordability problem more pronounced, said Edward Pinto, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank.Pinto said construction of single-family homes would have to rise by 50% to 100% during the next three years for average home price gains to be flat a sign, he said, that Trump’s fears about falling home prices were probably unwarranted.“It’s very hard to crater home prices,” Pinto said. Josh Boak, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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