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“Let me start with this: It could have been me. That’s a hard thought to shake when watching the videos out of Israel — the concert goers fleeing across an empty expanse, the hostages being paraded through the streets, the people shot in the head at bus stops or in their cars. I went to those parties in the desert, I rubbed shoulders with Israelis and Arabs and Jews and Muslims, I could have easily accepted an invitation to some concert near Sderot and gone without a care, only to be indiscriminately slaughtered. Or, perhaps worse, taken hostage and tortured.” Independent journalist Isaac Saul published a personal perspective on the Israel-Hamas war, through a historical lens informed by “the thousand-year history that led us here”. Read the full story in our Staff Picks.

“As I gained skill in rearranging symbols, I learned that sculpting with code felt most like clay.” Amy J. Ko, professor at the University of Washington Information School, believes everyone is an artist—they just have to find the right medium. Read the full story in Staff Picks.

“Unfortunately, the AI companies have nearly universally broken fundamental issues of fairness: they are making money on your writing without asking for your consent, nor are they offering you compensation and credit… AI companies have leached value from writers in order to spam Internet readers.” This week on The Medium Blog, our thoughts on a fair use future for AI that puts writers first. https://medium.com/blog/default-no-to-ai-training-on-your-stories-abb5b4589c8

Today on Medium, an ode to embracing growing old. From María Ochoa, Ph.D., in Crow’s Feet, a Medium publication that “sheds light on the aging process.” https://medium.com/crows-feet/psst-ask-me-how-old-i-am-906c8b40865e

“A lot of people want stories to be, essentially, mathematical formulas: plug this value into this formula, get an expected result. Unfortunately, stories are emotional tools that humans created for emotional reasons.” —Doc Burford, video game designer. Link in Staff Picks.

Medium is for personal stories. Just published: @itswilwheaton reflects on the emotional turmoil of a first crush. Link in Staff Picks.