This week, host Isaac Butler talks to Anthony Davis, a Pulitzer Prize winning opera composer whose work includes the 1986 opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, which was recently revived and produced for the Metropolitan Opera. In the interview, Anthony discusses the inspiration for X and the many genres he drew from to compose its music. He also talks about how to craft a story using music and why it's important to him to make political art. After the interview, Isaac and co-host June Thomas discuss creative career pivots and the act of finding inspiration from eavesdropping. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675.

A new book shedding light on the top-secret life of a drone pilot in the US military is being turned into a film financed by Hollywood director Michael Bay. Drone Warrior: An Elite Soldier's Inside Account of the Hunt for America's Most Dangerous Enemies is a book following the nearly decade-long career of Brett Velicovich, a drone pilot with America's most elite military unit, Delta Force. Co-written by Pulitzer Prize winning former Wall Street Journal author Christopher S Stewart, the book charts Velicovich's career as he traveled across the world hunting down some of the United States' most wanted terrorists. Brett Velicovich, a former drone pilot with America's most elite military unit, Delta Force, has released a book detailing his time with the force Co-written by Pulitzer Prize winning former Wall Street Journal author Christopher S Stewart, the book charts Velicovich's career The book tells stories of Velicovich's time traveling the world and hunting down some of the United States' most wanted terrorists. He's pictured above with Somali forces in Burundi Featuring missions in Somalia, Burundi, Afghanistan and more, Drone Warrior pulls no punches in its portrayal of modern-day warfare, with Velicovich being particularly candid in his assessment of US military operations.

Software with increasingly complex algorithms are now writing news stories and financial reports The L.A. Times uses Quakebot to write about tremors, using data from the US Geological Survey. Chicago-based company Narrative Science markets its Quill software to media and financial houses The company's chief scientists believes a computer program could win a Pulitzer Prize within the next 5 years The L.A. Times uses Quakebot to write about tremors, using data from the US Geological Survey. The company's chief scientists believes a computer program could win a Pulitzer Prize within the next 5 years At large news agencies where speed is crucial, template-style stories have long been used for company results, allowing journalists to simply key in the relevant facts and numbers and fire off the dispatch. Often disparagingly referred to as'churnalism,' some of the larger media organisations -- including the L.A. Times and Associated Press -- have now turned to robots to take the grind out of formulaic dispatches. The L.A. Times uses the algorithms in its in-house software -- called Quakebot - to produce reports on local earthquakes, using data provided by the US Geological Survey.

My last interview for this year is with Steve Lohr. Steve Lohr has covered technology, business, and economics for the New York Times for more than twenty years. In 2013 he was part of the team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. We discussed Big Data and how it influences the new Artificial Intelligence awakening. Steve Lohr: Both Google and Microsoft are contributing their tools to expand and enlarge the AI community, which is good for the world and good for their businesses.

"Intelligent system designers do have ethical responsibilities." I have interviewed John Markoff, technology writer at The New York Times. In 2013 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. The interview is related to his recent book "Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots, published in August of 2015 by HarperCollins Ecco. Do you share the concerns of prominent technology leaders such as Tesla's chief executive, Elon Musk, who suggested we might need to regulate the development of artificial intelligence?