Good morning, and happy Labor Day. Today, we tell you about the brand-new Connections Bot. We're also covering protests in Israel, elections in East Germany and the great Lego spill.
A Connections scoreWordleBot, introduced in 2022, has become one of the The Times's most popular features. Every month, it receives millions of visits from readers who want feedback on their attempt to solve each day's five-letter word. Now the designers of that bot have created a new one — for the Connections game. I know that The Morning's audience includes many passionate game players, and I want to devote today's holiday newsletter to a quick description of the new Connections Bot. It also has a larger significance: It includes the first English text generated by A.I. that The Times newsroom will regularly publish. The purple bonusI've had access to an internal version of the bot in recent weeks and have had fun playing with it. (If you don't yet play Connections, a very brief description is: You must separate 16 terms into four categories, with four terms in each category, and there is only one solution that works. The trick is that one category — as you can see below with this "STADIUMS" category — often has five or more potential answers.)
As with Wordle, you first play the game and then visit the bot for feedback. Once you do, you find out how your performance compared with that of other players, and you receive a skill score, up to 99. It's based mostly on how many mistakes you made, but it also awards extra credit if you started by solving what the Times Games team considers to be the hardest categories — starting with the purple category and followed by blue.
(Related: Connections die-hards may enjoy watching this video by Hank Green, a writer who developed his own "hard mode" for Connections, which requires solving purple first.) After the bot gives you a skill score and some other information, the A.I. feature comes next. It uses artificial intelligence to guess what players were thinking when they made incorrect guesses. I find it delightful:
I asked Eve Washington — a graphics editor with The Times's Upshot section, who helped create the bot — what surprised her about the process, and she told me that it helped her feel better about the days when she doesn't solve the puzzle. "Connections can be a hard game!" Eve said, pointing out that the solve rate is below 50 percent some days. "But knowing that most people were feeling stuck reminded me I was not alone, and made the game more fun," Eve added. "It took the pressure off of playing a perfect game and instead created joy in discovering all of the unique ways that people tried to reason through the puzzle." When I asked her what she hoped other people would get from the bot, Eve replied, "I hope that people feel seen by the bot." Next steps: You can read a user guide's to the bot, written by my colleagues at The Upshot — or you can simply play Connections and then visit the bot.
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Dorm design: Some parents are paying more for dorm room interior designers than they are for college tuition. The great spill: Nearly five million Lego pieces fell out of a shipping container and into the sea in 1997. The pieces are still showing up on beaches. Maine: A Deaf man killed in a mass shooting didn't get to see the third season of the camp he started. Twenty-two children did, including his own. Tipping: Americans are being asked to tip more often and in more places than ever before. It may soon get worse. Happy birthday, eggs! Women are throwing parties to celebrate taking charge of their fertility futures. Ask Vanessa: "Who can pull off a jean jacket?" A funnel cake macchiato? Coffee makers are in a battle for who can come up with the craziest, calorie-laden, not-really-coffee drink. Metropolitan Diary: One night on top of the world. Lives Lived: Simon Verity was a British stone carver whose works including the statues that adorn the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Upper Manhattan. He died at 79.
U.S. Open: The American Emma Navarro ousted defending champion Coco Gauff in front of a star-studded crowd. Read a recap. W.N.B.A.: Chicago Sky star Angel Reese set the league's single-season rebounding record. College football: U.S.C. outlasted L.S.U. in the holiday weekend's last premier game, 27-20. The Tigers have lost three straight season openers under Brian Kelly.
The Books desk has put together a list of anticipated fiction and poetry works coming this fall. Here are some upcoming releases:
Read The Times's fall fiction preview. More on culture
Roast tofu for a tangy and spicy sheet-pan dish. Eat these things for a long and healthy life. Clean crumbs with a good hand-held vacuum. Ski without blisters thanks to these socks. Take our news quiz.
Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangram was handbook. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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