Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend so far.

Tech journalist Brian Merchant does a great job of taking big tech and generative AI to task in his newsletter, Blood in the Machine. With his AI Killed My Job series, Merchant brings the real-world impact of generative AI on labor and people’s lives into further focus by sharing the stories from the likes of tech workers, translators, artists and copywriters.

In the latest installment of the series, educators share their experiences of how the boondoggle technology has affected them, from students turning in AI-generated papers to being forced to use Copilot to colleagues abandoning their morals to clamber aboard the hype train. As with the previous editions of AI Killed My Job, it’s a sobering, essential read.

Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to join us.

Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don’t look at Twitter much.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, March 22 are coming right up.

Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.

Today’s 16 words are...

And the level one hints for today’s Connections groups are:

Need some extra help? 

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Let’s take a look at one word for each group.

Today’s Connections word hints are…

Today’s Connections groups are...

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are...

I got the weightlifting words right away, thanks to WEIGHT and BENCH making those clear to me. Blues, sorted. The greens were next up. No issue for me there.

At that point, I was able to figure out the purples because CROWD and CHANNEL landed next to each other. The yellow category then jumped out at me.

That's another perfect game in the books. I really don't want to seem like I'm bragging about having a streak of 386 wins in a row. That seems dreadfully uncouth. However, I'm happy to have it, and I'm happy you're here.

How did you get on today? Here's my grid:

🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. I’ll be back over at Forbes for the Monday-Friday editions for the column. And if you haven’t subscribed to Pastimes already, definitely do that! It would be super sweet of you.

P.S. I put out a call for laidback Sunday song recommendations on Discord a while back (I’m accepting suggestions on an ongoing basis!). Maxim offered up this classic, “Behind Blue Eyes” by The Who:

(The Limp Bizkit version is more laidback, to be honest. And to be really honest — and put myself at risk of ridicule — I like it more than the original):

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!

On weekdays, you can find this column over at Forbes. Please follow my blog there for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot!

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