AI is writing about half of the articles on the internet, Axios' Megan Morrone writes from a new report by Graphite, an SEO firm.

• The number of AI-written articles has exploded since ChatGPT's debut, and it's now roughly the same as the number of articles written by humans.
• Some paywalled sites — where content is more likely to be written by people — weren't captured in the analysis, but it covers over 300 billion web pages.

💡Yes, but: There's almost no AI content on the most prominent news sites.

• Low-quality content farms are able to use AI to churn out an enormous quantity of words — but even robots still prefer human-written content.

🖥️ By the numbers: 86% of articles ranking in Google Search were written by humans, and 14% were generated by AI, according to a separate report from Graphite.

• And 82% of articles cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity were written by humans.

Go deeper.

News outlets are rejecting the Pentagon's effort to restrict press coverage, Axios' Sara Fischer reports.

• Conservative newsrooms Newsmax and the Washington Times joined a slew of national outlets in refusing to agree to the Defense Department's terms for press access.
• Fox News, in a joint statement with ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News, said the new policy "is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections."

📰 Where it stands: The Pentagon asked outlets to agree not to solicit or publish information that hasn't been publicly released, or risk losing their credentials to work inside the Pentagon.

• AP, Axios, The New York Times, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, among others, have all said they won't sign the agreement.
• So far only one outlet, the conservative cable network One America News, indicated that it planned to sign the pledge.

Go deeper.

1. 🇮🇱 Israel threatened to halve the number of aid trucks allowed to enter Gaza after Hamas released the bodies of just four of 28 dead hostages. Hamas is now expected to release four additional bodies, but says it can't find all of them. Go deeper.
2. ⚖️ The Supreme Court rejected Alex Jones' attempts to appeal the $1.4 billion judgment he was ordered to pay to the families of Sandy Hook victims. Go deeper.
3. 🛒 Walmart is working with OpenAI on a new feature that will allow customers to give ChatGPT broad instructions like "plan a weeknight taco dinner" or "reorder my staples" and check out in one step. Go deeper.

This 2,346-pound pumpkin took home the top prize yesterday at the World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off — held in Half Moon Bay, Calif., south of San Francisco.

• The victory comes with $20,000 and a bit of redemption for the man who grew the giant gourd. His entry into last year's contest fell just 6 pounds short of first place.

Go deeper.