Thread by @jtemplejrnalist

@evanbirnholz @evanbirnholz First, thank you for your praise for what we’ve done @amuselabs. It’s been a pleasure for us to support your incredibly creative and challenging crosswords for @washingtonpost. I hear your disappointment, but I hope you’ll let me share a different perspective.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 2/Our AI puzzle maker goes back to the roots of @amuselabs. We wanted to democratize the creation of knowledge games, to make it easy for people to create word games based on their passions, interests and expertise and enable them to share the games with others.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 3/Our @amuselabs AI Puzzle maker is just a user interface layer on what was already possible using our PuzzleMe software. It's not mean for experts like you. We will continue to provide our powerful creation tool for experts like you.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 4/But we don't think it's right to deny teachers or others who only have 3 minutes to create a game for their students or others the ability to do so, when we can make it happen. Our AI Puzzle maker isn't just for crosswords.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 5/Our @AmuseLabs AI creator helps with word search, quiz and WordroW, too. It's important to note that our creator for experts is only in English, while our player supports more than 40 languages.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 6/Now the @amuselabs AI creator works in any language. We're seeing a lot of usage in Arabic, for example. It makes our creator universal, helping fulfill our dream of making it possible for anyone to create games as a way to communicate.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 7/@evanbirnholz You make it seem like people will come to the conclusion that it's easy to create a crossword. I think the opposite. They will realize how difficult it is to create a great crossword and, I hope, aspire to learn more.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 8/I think the @AmuseLabs AI creator may increase the popularity of crosswords and other word games. It may also help people see how beautiful they can be in the digital era, because it will be easy to add images and sounds and video.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 9/We see the AI creator as the next step in what we've already been doing. PuzzleMe already enabled users to create topic based word games, or word games based on urls or text. Now they can do more.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 10/They can now generate beautiful backgrounds, for example. The truth is that PuzzleMe enables different levels of game creation. A person can type in to an empty grid. They can provide a list of words and have the software generate a grid.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 11/They can provide a dictionary of their own and let the algorithm select and lay out the words in a grid. Or they can use our latest layer, our AI agent, which will chat with them and help guide them.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 12/Rather than being anti-labor, this latest iteration of our software frees people to do something they couldn't do before: create word games that reflect their interests. It's a tool to assist people in living richer lives.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 13/I wish we were still supporting your artistry. We do support the artistry of many of your peers. But we're happy to put tools into the hands of every person to let them have a sense of what's possible and how difficult it is to reach the highest heights.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 14/My hope is that rather than seeing your image of enshitification, you'll think of the teacher wanting to find a new way to make students enjoy learning. A game. Made by them. Together with the teacher. One they can be proud of.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 15/No, of course theirs won't be the same quality as yours. But when we toss a baseball with our child, we don't say, you'll never be able to throw like a pro. We know the child will appreciate the artistry of the pro because of their experience.

@evanbirnholz @AmuseLabs @washingtonpost 16/@evanbirnholz When we open possibilities for people, it doesn't make the world poorer. It makes it richer. And more interesting. I hope you'll keep using PuzzleMe and that many more people will find pleasure using it. THE END/for now...