Give These Apps Some Notes and They'll Write Emails for You

Michael Shuffet didn't waste any keystrokes when responding to a message about the automated email writer he's building. He tapped out "Yes 45m" and clicked a button marked "Generate email." Shuffet checked it over and clicked Send. Compose is one of several automated writing tools built on striking new text-generation technology known as GPT-3, revealed in June by OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research institute. GPT-3 went viral this summer after people marveled at how it could fluently crank out memes, code, self-help blog posts, and Hemingway-style Harry Potter fanfic.